HALCO, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Prisoners with HIV/AIDS Support Action Network (PASAN) provided comments on health care in Ontario provincial correctional facilities to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (“Ministries”).
The comments draw attention to aspects of health care in Ontario prisons that are relevant from the perspective of human rights, public health and health equity.
The health of prisoners is a public health concern. Prisoners come from the community, and the vast majority return to it. Everyone in the prison environment – prisoners, prison staff and service providers – also benefits from enhancing the health of incarcerated patients.
Yet, according to the Office of the Ombudsman for Ontario, over half of the almost 4,000 complaints received in 2016-2017 from those incarcerated in Ontario’s adult correctional facilities involved significant concerns about health care, including access to doctors or specialists, delays in receiving certain types of treatment, or problems in receiving medication.
The submissions include recommendations to improve health care in Ontario provincial correctional facilities.
You can read our submissions on our website: www.halco.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/CorrectionalHealthCare-Submission2018May.pdf.
If you are living with HIV in Ontario and have questions about this or any other legal issue, please contact us for free legal advice.