No one would be surprised to hear that standover tactics, bullying and violence are rife in prison. But you may be surprised to learn that prison nurses in New Zealand also engage in this kind of behaviour.  In 2006, management at Corrections were so concerned about bullying by prison nurses, they asked the Health & Disability Commission to investigate.

The HDC dispatched two employees, Dr Elizabeth Finn and Mr David Webber to conduct a series of workshops in prison health centres. The first was held at the Waikeria prison in 2006 and workshops were subsequently held in another 12 prisons.

In 2008, a damning summary of the HDC’s findings was released in a report titled “Team development workshops for prisons nursing services delivered by Dr Elizabeth Finn and Mr David Webber“. In September 2009, a copy of the report was sent to the Ombudsman by HDC chief legal advisor, Nicola Sladden, describing a “culture of horizontal violence and bullying” within prison health centres. It identified the following problems:

Lack of leadership

• “Not all nursing teams had a team leader, and not all of those that had a team leader experienced team leadership… Many teams identified a lack of cohesion in coordination with the team; this appears to occur in the presence of a team leader as well is in its absence.” 

• “Workshop discussions often identified situations where inadequacies in team operation actually or potentially compromise the care of patients and/or safety of members of the nursing team… ”  

• “There is great variation throughout the country (in team morale/culture). In some teams it was excellent and the team obviously was open, respectful and vibrant. In other teams this was identified as being very poor, to the extent that some nurses felt disinclined to come to work. Team culture was characterised by negative attitudes and interactions among nurses, (including) in-fighting, unkindness, backstabbing, and actions intended to discredit colleagues.”  

• “Some nurses experience treatment from custodial officers which shows no respect for them personally or for their role in delivering healthcare. Some nurses speak of having to ‘serve an apprenticeship’ of up to two years before custodial officers will accept them – speak to or respond to them. Some officers may interfere in discussions between a nurse and a patient, possibly ‘winding up’ the patient and making delivery of care more difficult.”

Discouraged medication policy

Another failing identified by Finn and Webber concerned the prescribing of medication by prison doctors. The authors wrote:

“It appears that some doctors are not sufficiently aware of the context of the prison environment and the particular challenges it presents. For example, some medications are inappropriate in this environment because of their potential for use as ‘currency’. Lack of national consistency with respect to provision of medications to patients who are prisoners may lead to stand-over tactics and abuse directed towards doctors in the first instance, and also towards nurses. A robust induction programme for doctors would be helpful.”

From time to time, prisoners have to be taken to hospital with serious injuries or medical problems. Finn and Webber even reprimand doctors in hospital Emergency Departments – apparently for not doing what they are told by prison nurses. The report says:

“(Doctors in) EDs may not be co-operating with advice from nurses that certain medications are not allowable in prisons, and are still prescribing these (codeine, morphine).”

In cases of severe pain, opiates such as codeine and morphine are likely to be the medications of choice. But the HDC seems to believe that, even in medical emergencies, prisoners should not have their pain relieved. Apparently they should continue to suffer – even when the pain is so bad they need to be taken to hospital.

Unfortunately, this ‘discouraged medication policy’ extends well beyond opiate pain relief. All medications including antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs are taken away from prisoners – usually on their first day in prison.  Although this practice varies from one prison to another, often such medications are never reinstated.

Breach of  human rights and medical ethics

Denying patients clinically appropriate medication, especially when they are in severe pain or have mental health disorders, is inhumane and a breach of human rights. It contributes to depression and even to suicide. The reality is that the systematic denial of opiates and other clinically appropriate medication is a form of pharmacological or ‘clean’ torture; it causes serious harm and distress to the prisoner without leaving any visible evidence.

The policy also encourages prison doctors to breach their medical ethics. The New Zealand Code requires physicians to “Consider the health and well-being of the patient to be your first priority” and to “render medical service to that person without discrimination.”  When doctors are coerced into making prison policy their first priority, and discriminate against the patient because he or she is in prison, they risk being struck off for breaching their ethics.

What’s extraordinary is that the Health and Disability Commission seems to condone this practice. For a Government agency with responsibility for promoting safe medical practices, this is truly disturbing. It suggests the HDC is complicit in Corrections strategy to breach the human rights of prisoners and raises serious questions about the integrity of investigations into complaints by prisoners who need these medications.

The Commissioner’s response

In July this year, I wrote to the HDC and asked if they still endorse this ‘discouraged medication policy’. Mr Anthony Hill, the Commissioner, replied:

“It is not HDC’s practice to endorse the policies or procedures of health care providers. This is because I must consider complaints to HDC fairly, with an open mind and free from bias. This may be called into question if I have previously endorsed a policy or procedure that is the subject of a complaint to HDC.”

That’s the whole point. The Finn Webber report is quite clearly an endorsement of Corrections discouraged medication policy and my letter therefore questions the integrity of all HDC investigations into prisoner healthcare in the last five years. Since Mr Hill refused to acknowledge the bias in the HDC’s position, I have now written to the Ombudsman suggesting that if the HDC does not endorse this particular policy, then the Ombudsman should encourage the Commissioner to write to Corrections and tell them so. Otherwise, the Finn Webber report gives the Department every reason to continue medication off prisoners – thereby leaving them in pain and distress – and believing the HDC endorses this unethical practice.

I also suggested to the Ombudsman that he/she should persuade the Corrections Department to change this practice and remove it from their Medicines Policy. This is because New Zealand is party to the Convention against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment  which requires Governments to take effective measures to prevent the torture and ill treatment of people who are detained by the State.  And since 2007, when New Zealand signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), the Ombudsman became one of the monitoring bodies with responsibility to ensure that New Zealand meets its obligations under the Convention. If he does not intervene, then by failing to act, the Ombudsman is also condoning and endorsing the torture and ill treatment of New Zealand prisoners.

On Tuesday, 1st October 2013, Geoff Robinson (photo) interviewed  Roger Brooking on Morning Report about the Corrections Departments Medicine Policy. It runs for 4.30 minutes. This is the full transcript of the interview:

Geoff Robinson: Some doctors are calling for a major review of the way prisoners’ health is managed.  Dr Wayne Cunningham, a former Otago prison doctor says the emphasis on security over health when he worked at the prison meant it didn’t work well.  And he says it was a miracle no one died on his watch.  Last week, Radio New Zealand revealed that the police are investigating accusations that a prisoner received substandard care at the Otago prison before he died in February 2011 and they’re reviewing another patient’s suicide four months earlier.  Those investigations are underway after a complaint from a Wellington drug and alcohol counsellor, Roger Brooking, and he joins us now.

So this suggestion from Dr Wayne Cunningham that there should that there should be a review of the whole health needs of prisoners and how they dealt with, would you agree with that?

Roger Brooking: I absolutely would.  The Corrections Department has a number of policies and practices which make it very hard for doctors and nurses in the prison system to provide what I would call proper or equivalent health care (to that which is available in the community).  One of the policies that the Department has is the Medicines Policy.  It has a particular section, 6.1, which I refer to as the “discouraged medication policy”.  Basically what that says is that prison doctors are “actively discouraged” from prescribing benzodiazepines, opiate painkillers, and any other medication which may be tradable or have currency in the prison environment.

Geoff Robinson: these are medications which are normally provided to patients by the health service throughout the country but doctors in prison are actively discouraged from prescribing them?

Roger Brooking: That’s right.  And this has significant impacts on the prisoners.  There are violent incidents in prison;  prisoners like anyone else get sick; occasionally they have to go to emergency departments – the policy even extends to the point that doctors in hospital emergency departments are discouraged from prescribing opiates to a patient, a prisoner, who may have broken his leg or been stabbed or whatever it is.  To me, I regard this as a kind of enhanced pharmacological torture.

Geoff Robinson: Is it a question then of whether the prisoner or the patient has the drugs in his or her possession and is able to take them as appropriate and may possibly try and trade them to some other prisoner – or is it something that the prison authorities could hand out as necessary?

Roger Brooking: Well, that’s exactly how they do it.  They don’t give the prisoner a handful of pills or a bottle or a little box like you would get in the community; in the prison environment, especially for medications like opiates, those are dispensed in my understanding on a daily basis. The prisoner has to go to the prison health centre and the nurse would give him the pill and he has to swallow it in front of the nurse. And so I don’t see that there’s too much of a problem there.

Geoff Robinson: And so you believe therefore that prison doctors should not be actively discouraged from prescribing them because there’s enough safeguards in the system to prevent them being traded?

Roger Brooking: Yes.  And I would also add that this policy encourages prison doctors to actually breach their medical ethics.  Because prison doctors, like any other doctor, his first priority is to provide a duty of care to the patient.  Now if the doctor basically gives in to this ‘discouraged medication policy’ and doesn’t give the prisoner medication which is clinically appropriate in that particular situation, then he is breaching his medical ethics – and could be struck off.

Geoff Robinson: So the doctor is paid by the Corrections Department to provide care to the prisoner?

Roger Brooking: Yes.

Geoff Robinson: And the doctor’s first responsibility is to the patient, the prisoner, rather than the person who’s paying him?

Roger Brooking: Under his medical ethics, yes, his responsibility is to the patient.  But what appears to happen is that in the prison environment, because doctors and nurses are contracted to the Corrections Department that interferes with the patient doctor relationship.  And in many cases from my experience, many doctors find this very difficult.  I think it is a difficult situation for them because they’re caught between a rock and a hard place and it depends on the integrity of the doctor.  Some doctors will put the patient first; some doctors will put the prison policies first.

Geoff Robinson: Thank you for joining us. That’s Roger Brooking. He’s a Wellington drug and alcohol counsellor.

The Human Rights Data Project defines torture as:

“The purposeful inflicting of extreme pain, whether mental or physical, by government officials or by private individuals at the instigation of government officials. This includes the use of physical and other force by police and prison guards that is cruel, inhuman, or degrading, and deaths in custody due to tangible negligence by government officials.” 

This post, ‘80% of countries use torture – New Zealand is one of them‘, explains that democracies tend to use ‘clean’ torture techniques that leave no physical signs of abuse. It also explains that psychological torture techniques produce similar levels of post-traumatic stress disorder as physical torture.  This link describes the psychological impact of the Corrections Department’s Medicines Policy which actively discourages prison doctors from prescribing opiate painkillers and other medications to prisoners – leaving them in severe pain and often forcing them into withdrawal.

Minimum dental services policy

Corrections also discourages dentists from providing proper dental care to prisoners.  In 2012, the Ombudsman issued a 157 page report titled: Investigation of the Department of Corrections in relation to the Provision, Access and Availability of Prisoner Health Services. It was highly critical of the Department pointing out that nearly half of the country’s 8,500 prisoners reported problems with their teeth. It said:

Management at Corrections don’t care. They have what the Ombudsman calls a ‘minimum dental services policy’ which is similar to their ‘discouraged medication policy’.  The ‘minimal services’ are supposedly justified by Section 81 of the Corrections Regulations 2005 which states:

“Any examination or treatment must be primarily concerned with the relief of pain,  the maintenance of a reasonable standard of dental care relative to the dental and oral health of the prisoner concerned before the prisoner was admitted to the prison, or both.” 

The Department interprets this regulation to mean that if inmates had poor dental care prior to coming to prison, it will continue to provide poor dental care.  For most prisoners, all the Department offers is low level pain relief.  Prisoners with tooth decay or toothache inform the prison nurse who (may or may not) put them on a waiting list. For prisoners on the list, no matter how bad the pain, all the nurses will provide is panadol.  That’s because the ‘discouraged medication policy’ inhibits doctors from prescribing strong pain killers.

Extraction is the standard procedure

When a prisoner finally gets to see the dentist, all the dentist is allowed to do is extract the offending tooth.  Amalgam fillings are not permitted for offenders who came into prison with bad teeth.  In The Effects of Imprisonment on Inmates and their Families Health and Wellbeing, Dr Michael Roguski says:

“This restrictive eligibility criterion was said to result in tooth extraction as the standard form of prison dental treatment. In a number of cases, participants indicated that teeth are extracted regardless of whether tooth restoration, such as a filling, is the more appropriate or the easier course of action.”

Sometimes even extraction is not available.  This painful policy is more likely to be applied to short term prisoners. Those who are going to be released within 12 months usually get no dental treatment at all. One inmate described his ordeal to the Ombudsman like this:

“I put in a chit to see a nurse about my tooth which was decayed. She declined to put me on the dentist’s list. Some months later, I saw the nurse again because it was sore at night. She told me to take Panadol. My tooth finally abscessed and, when I saw the nurse, I was told that because I was getting out soon, I could see a dentist then.”

The reality is that 80% of the 20,000 people who end up in prison each year are released within 12 months.  Panadol is ‘dished out like lollies’ but opiate pain killers are not allowed. If prisoners are in severe pain, they may be lucky enough to have the tooth extracted, but that’s all. No attempt is made to provide fillings or save the tooth before it needs to be extracted.

Long waiting lists

The rules are slightly different for the 20% of inmates who are in prison for more than 12 months. But even for this group of prisoners, getting to see a dentist in prison is still extremely difficult.  The Department has difficulty even finding dentists who are willing to work in prison. In 2012 the Ombudsman reported that no dentists were available in Christchurch and a Wellington dentist had to be flown down to provide dental care at all three Canterbury prisons.

Arohata women’s prison has never had a dentist.  Once a fortnight, female prisoners at Arohata are transported to the health centre at Rimutaka prison to see the dentist. On dental days, the Rimutaka Health Centre is closed (to males needing medical attention), because female prisoners are not allowed to mix with male prisoners.

At other prisons there are long waiting lists. As a result, some prisoners resort to pulling out their own teeth. One prisoner described his experience to Dr Roguski like this:

The Ombudsman concluded:

“Very few prisoners we spoke to commented favourably in respect to dental services. At the prisons we visited, prisoners regularly complained about delays in dental treatment. Not only did they complain about suffering pain during such delay, but referred to additional dental problems such as infection and abscess by reason of the delay.”

“The length of waitlists for prisoners requiring dental treatment indicates a failure to meet the Department’s Performance Standard B.06 (Dental Care) that states: “the dentist’s practice hours are adequate to meet the prescribed minimum dental services for each prisoner”. It would appear that the dental service is not being resourced at a level which reflects the high levels of dental need which exist in New Zealand prisons.”

What the Ombudsman should have said is that the Department spends $1 billion a year on containment and security but is incredibly reluctant to spend money on ensuring that prisoners have adequate dental care. This reluctance causes intense suffering for thousands of prisoners on a daily basis. It constitutes cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and is a breach of the Department’s duty of care.

The reality is that withholding treatment from patients in severe pain is a form of psychological torture.  Since there is an official regulation justifying this policy, this is institutionalised torture – due to tangible negligence by government officials.

Democracies like to use ‘clean’ torture techniques – leaving no visible signs of the suffering they cause. But if we look more closely, there are signs. Most of these victims leave prison with substantially fewer teeth than they started with.  But who’s counting?  Not the Corrections Department, that’s for sure.

In 2009 Dr Michael Roguski and Fleur Chauvel released a report titled The Effects of Imprisonment on Inmates and their Families Health and Wellbeing.  They interviewed 63 New Zealand inmates about their medical treatment in prison and provided a number of case studies. Here’s one about a male prisoner who had been prescribed anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication for a number of years prior to coming to prison. While in the community, he had monthly appointments with his GP and saw his psychiatrist every six months.  The prisoner wrote:

“When I arrived at the prison they removed all my antidepressants. They said that I might be stood over for them. I was unable to sleep so after about a week they gave me antihistamines. It didn’t really help… I was too anxious. I was not sleeping for days on end. I was at maximum despair. I could feel myself going downhill in this negative environment. 

“After about a month they gave me a different antidepressant from the one I was on on the outside. But it was a really low dose and things didn’t improve. Another two months went by. I was in agony and I was put in At Risk as I’d started spinning out. I couldn’t see any way out. A week after going to At Risk the doctor came and visited me and he prescribed the same meds I was on on the outside. Yeah, it was a real bad time. I was in agony.” (Richard, Pākehā, 40–50 years)

Medical malpractice

At best, this is medical malpractice.  At worst, its torture.  New Zealanders who commit a crime and end up in prison are entitled to the same level of healthcare and quality in treatment they would receive if they remained in the community.  This is specified in Section 75 of the Corrections Act 2004 which states:

“A prisoner is entitled to receive medical treatment that is reasonably necessary” and “the standard of healthcare that is available to prisoners in a prison must be reasonably equivalent to the standard of healthcare available to the public”.

This requirement is reinforced by Regulation 73 of the Corrections Amendment Regulations 2013 which describes the ‘Duties of a Health Centre Manager’ (the head nurse) as follows:

“The health centre manager of a prison must take all practicable steps to maintain the physical and mental health of prisoners to a satisfactory standard… and must “ensure that medicine is administered to a prisoner in accordance with his or her medical needs”.

Corrections’ Medicines Policy

However, the Corrections Department largely ignores these statutory requirements by making up a prison ‘Medicines Policy’ which, in effect, tells doctors and nurses to ignore their nursing and medical ethics.  For instance, paragraph 6.1.1 of the Medicines Policy tells doctors that:

“Prescribing medication that can be misused/abused or has some economic value in a prison environment (or example benzodiazepines, opioids, zopiclone) is actively discouraged. A clinically suitable alternative medication or treatment option is preferred.”

The systematic denial of opiates and other clinically appropriate medication is discussed in Torture in New Zealand 2 – forcing prisoners into withdrawal. It causes serious distress to the prisoner without leaving any visible evidence of the harm and suffering it causes.  And, it is incompatible with the legislation described above.  It also appears to breach Section 151 of the Crimes Act which requires anyone:

“who has actual care or charge of a person who is a vulnerable adult to  provide that person with necessaries; and to take reasonable steps to protect that person from injury”.

Although caution has to be taken when prescribing potentially addictive medication, members of the public are not generally denied opiates, or mental health medications, just because they are open to abuse or potentially tradable. But prisoners are.  This ‘discouraged medication’ policy negates any possibility that prisoners can receive an equivalent level of care to patients in the community.

The Medical Code of Ethics

In addition to potential breaches of human rights, the Crimes Act and the Corrections Act, the denial of medication to prisoners is also incompatible with doctors’ medical ethics. For instance, the New Zealand Medical Code of Ethics contains 12 Principles and 44 Professional Responsibilities.

The first principle is:

“Consider the health and well-being of the patient to be your first priority.” 

If doctors fail to prescribe clinically appropriate medication because of the Department’s concern that medicines may be traded, then rules established by prison management have become the doctor’s first priority – not the well-being of the patient.

Recommendation number 7 states:

“When a patient is accepted for care, doctors should render medical service to that person without discrimination (as defined by the Human Rights Act).”

When prisoners in severe pain or with mental health problems are not allowed certain medication simply because they are in prison, that constitutes discrimination.

Professional responsibility number 37 states:

“Doctors should not countenance, condone or participate in the practice of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading procedures, whatever the offence of which the victim of such procedures is suspected, accused or guilty.”

Denying appropriate painkilling medication to patients in severe pain; or removing anti-psychotic and anti-depressant medication from prisoners who need it is inherently cruel and inhuman. Doctors are responsible for their own clinical practice, but the problem ultimately lies with the Department’s ‘discouraged medication’ policy – and the punitive culture which surrounds it. It seems doctors who follow this policy are unwittingly performing enhanced pharmacological torture on physically and psychologically vulnerable prisoners – in the process, they are completely ignoring their medical ethics.

In 2009 Dr Michael Roguski and Fleur Chauvel interviewed 63 New Zealand prisoners chosen at random asking questions about their treatment in prison. In a report titled The Effects of Imprisonment on Inmates and their Families Health and Wellbeing, the researchers document a number of inhumane and degrading practices which cause intense psychological suffering; these produce the same level of trauma as physical torture techniques.

These inhumane practices are part of daily life in New Zealand prisons.  One of the most abusive is the use of ‘At Risk’ cells. These are special observation cells for potentially suicidal prisoners.  The prisoner’s clothes and underwear are taken away and replaced with a ‘suicide proof’ canvas tunic. There’s no TV, no radio, nothing to read and no visitors are allowed.  The prisoner is locked up in a small cell 23 hours a day – with one hour for exercise in a slightly bigger cell. The camera is on 24 hours a day, and the lights come on at night every 15 minutes so officers can check that the prisoner is still alive – although sometimes they don’t check and the prisoner still dies.

Sleep deprivation

Perhaps the most inhumane feature of these At Risk cells is the lights turning on and off so the prisoner can’t sleep. So if he wasn’t suicidal when he came in, he soon will be.  Keeping someone awake for days on end causes a range of physiological symptoms  including headaches, anxiety and impaired cognitive functioning. It also causes high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, and can lead to depression, hallucinations and psychosis.  The effects are so debilitating, the United States uses sleep deprivation to torture prisoners at Guantanamo.

Placing a prisoner who is already disturbed into a cell where he is unable to sleep is about as barbaric as it gets. And yet this is exactly what the Department did with Antonie Dixon who has a long history of mental illness. He was in the At Risk cells for months before he finally killed himself.  He covered up the camera with toilet paper and somehow managed to hang himself with a rope made out of the ‘suicide proof’ canvas tunic.

Dixon should have been in a psychiatric hospital where he could receive proper psychiatric treatment.  The fact that he managed to commit suicide after months and months in an At Risk cell highlights the pain and suffering he experienced.  Even if Corrections didn’t physically torture him, psychological torture produces the same trauma as physical techniques. What happened to Dixon was torture – pure and simple.

Fear of going to At Risk

Dixon’s case is one of the worst. But out of the 63 prisoners that Roguski and Chauvel interviewed, nearly half had been diagnosed with a psychiatric condition prior to their incarceration.  Bearing in mind, the suicide rate in New Zealand prisons is 11 times higher than in the community. And on any given day, 20% of New Zealand prisoners are ‘thinking a lot’ about killing themselves.  That’s about 1,700 prisoners who are potentially suicidal on a daily basis – out of a total of 8,500. Dr Roguski says these prisoners are so afraid of going to At Risk, they often refuse to ask for help.  He wrote:

“Participants (in the research) who were experiencing depression and suicidal ideation made decisions not to seek intervention for fear of being placed in the At Risk unit.”

It gets worse. These At Risk cells are not just reserved for the suicidal.  The Department also uses them for prisoners who are merely upset or tearful.  One man in Roguski’s study described how he ended up in At Risk:

“When I came from the court house it was close to midnight ’cause I was waiting all day for a verdict. Then I come in, got strip searched and everything, and then they go to me, “Are you alright? “ “Yeah I’m alright.” But I had a bit of a tear in my eye because I was thinking about my kids. Then they go, “How about we just put you on observations for the night?”

They were like, “Don’t worry you will just be here for the night until we sort it out”. One night turned into three weeks and I told them every day, “Mister can I go back to remand?” … “Yeah, hang on we’ll sort it out.” Three weeks later I was still in At Risk… I was going nuts.”  (Anaru, Māori man, 18–25 years)

Some prisoners have spent months in these appalling conditions. In response to an Official Information Act request, the Department advised that in 2011, over 3,000 prisoners were placed in these At Risk cells. That’s more than one third of the entire prison population. One prisoner spent almost an entire year in one – 349 days to be precise.  Maria McDonald, Assistant General Manager, Prison Services who replied to my OIA thought this was totally justified. She claimed this occurred because:

“The prisoner may not have presented with a treatable mental illness and forensic treatment may not have been identified as the appropriate form of clinical management.”

Yeah right!   Based on his research, Dr Roguski came to an entirely different conclusion about the use of these cells.  He wrote:

“It was generally felt that officers, and some medical staff, automatically channelled prisoners into At Risk, or left them there for inappropriate amounts of time, due to lack of training and a limited availability of medical professionals to deal with possible mental health crises. As a result, participants related that if prisoners appeared to be emotional then they would be placed in an At Risk cell.”

According to the Ombudsman, “Prisoners will often drift in and out of At Risk Units, whether they are at risk of self-harm or not.”

The reality is that officers can only channel prisoners into At Risk if a prison nurse gives their permission and signs the appropriate form. In other words, its prison nurses, rather than the officers, who are endorsing the use of these torture cells.  What’s truly remarkable is that before publication, Dr Roguski showed his report to Corrections management to obtain their feedback. He said he was quite surprised they didn’t disagree or express an objection to any of his findings.

Section 5 of the Corrections Act requires that prisons are “operated in accordance with rules …  that are based on the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.” However, in its report titled “Investigation of the Department of Corrections in relation to the Access and Availability of Prisoner Health Services”, the Ombudsman found numerous failings in the delivery of health services.  He also said the Corrections Department does not meet Article 22(1) of the UN Minimum Standard Rules – which requires every prison to have at least one qualified medical officer, who should also have some knowledge of psychiatry.

Mental torture

This rule appears to be breached by virtually every prison in the country. The Ombudsman found that “Many medical officers have limited training in psychiatry and… some prison healthcare teams had no mental health nurses to provide specialised care to those who fell beneath the threshold of severe and enduring illness.”

To put it bluntly – this is crazy.  More than half of prisoners have had mental health problems; 60% have a personality disorder; almost two thirds have had a serious head injury and 90% have a history of alcohol and drug abuse. But the level of psychiatric care in prison is minimal. In an interview with psychiatrist and Parole Board member, Dr Phillip Brinded, the Sunday Star Times reported that “If a prisoner is so psychotic they can’t be managed, they will join the ‘acute’ list and get to hospital within days, but those who are just quietly off their rocker can languish on the ‘sub-acute’ list for many months. It seems that in order to get treatment in prison, you have to go really mad.”

Dental torture

This is not the only UN Rule breached by the Corrections Department. For instance, Article 22 (3) states that “The services of a qualified dental officer shall be available to every prisoner.” That sounds reasonable.  Prisoners tend to have chronically poor oral health care and the Prisoner Health Survey (2005) found that one third of those interviewed reported having a toothache in the previous month.  However, Corrections has difficulty securing the services of dentists – presumably because the Department doesn’t pay dentists as much as they can earn in private practice. Because of recruitment difficulties, the Ombudsman reported that the Department has been flying a dentist from Wellington to Christchurch to provide dental care for prisoners at all three Canterbury prisons.

Even in those prisons where dentists are available, the waiting list is up to three months. But here’s the real toothache.  The Department has a “minimum dental services policy” whereby pain relief only is provided to most prisoners – which may include medication, extraction, or drainage of an abscess.  Early treatment with amalgam fillings – which would prevent further decay – is not provided. Now that’s really crazy.

But the pain gets worse. Prisoners near the end of their sentence are not eligible for any dental treatment at all – they just get medication. The Ombudsman gave case histories of prisoners who had severe tooth decay who were not allowed by prison nurses to even see the dentist. For some of these prisoners, the decay eventually turned into an abscess.  One prisoner reported that “his jaw ached, his glands were swollen, and he had a sore ear – and he couldn’t sleep.”  All he got was panadol and told to “see a dentist when you get out.” That may not be torture – but it sure as hell hurts – night and day – for months on end.

Lets ratchet up the screws 

The Ombudsman concluded his report with a recommendation that responsibility for the health care of prisoners should be removed from the Corrections Department entirely and given to the Ministry of Health. The MOH agrees. A study released by the Ministry in 2010 says “An inherent tension exists between a custodial role and the delivery of comprehensive, high quality health services… current institutional arrangements prevent medical professionals from fully exercising their duty of care.”

Corrections Minister, Anne Tolley, and chief executive, Ray Smith, are clearly unconcerned. They want to reduce, rather than increase, the role of medical professionals in prison. Legislation was introduced to Parliament in February giving nurses rather than medical officers (doctors) overall responsibility for the healthcare of prisoners.  Up till now, Medical Officers who are contracted to Corrections have been responsible. Being on contract, they have some independence and can make decisions based on ‘best practice’.  But prison nurses are employees not contractors  – they can be told what to do by prison managers who have no medical training whatsoever.

This legislation will increase the ‘inherent tension’ which already exists and further erode the standard of medical care in prison.  Some would say – but they’re all crims in there, so who cares?  No one in the Corrections Department, that’s for sure.  Their attitude seems to be – if we can’t torture them, let’s make sure they feel the pain.