Legal Aspects of the Medical Treatment of Penitentiary Inmates
56 Pages Posted: 8 Mar 2010 Last revised: 26 Sep 2013
Date Written: 1976
Abstract
Recent years have seen the publication of reports and recommendations on prison medicine by international organizations, discussion in the media of the more obvious political aspects of prisoner health care such as those involved in hunger strikes by Irish detainees, widespread experimentation with behaviour modification techniques inside and outside institutional settings, the growth of a substantial body of case law in the United States dealing with prisoners' rights with regard to medical and psychiatric treatment, and among Canadian penitentiary inmates, anger and indignation at the human cost of the quantity and quality of medical and psychiatric care received by them.
Substantial changes in the administration and delivery of medical and psychiatric services to penitentiary inmates have been recommended by the Advisory Board of Psychiatric Consultants in their report entitled The General Program for the Development of Psychiatric Services in Federal Correctional Services in Canada (May, 1972) and by the National Health Services Advisory Committee to the Commissioner of Canadian Penitentiary Services in their First Report (June, 1974). The delivery of primary health care will be the subject of the final report of the National Health Services Advisory Committee. Legal aspects of the provision of medical treatment within the penitentiary setting, not the primary subject of those reports, clearly merit further scrutiny. This article will therefore examine the legal implications of administration and delivery of medical services within the penitentiary system. The administrator, the medical officer, and the inmate should all benefit directly or indirectly from an increased understanding of the respective rights and duties, liabilities and responsibilities that arise in the area of health care as a result of the establishment of doctor-inmate and director-inmate relationships. Uncertainty about the law tends to conduce to litigation between parties who feel themselves to be opposed to one another in interest, and at best can only serve to divert human energy away from the primary purpose - in this case the delivery and receipt of proper medical care.
Keywords: Prisons, Penitentiaries, Prisoner Rights, Access to Health Care, Informed Consent, Consent to Treatment, Right to Refuse Medical Treatment, Coerced Consent, Legal Regulation of Prison Medical Care, Prison Administration, Regulation of Penitentiaries, Human Rights of Prisoners
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