Medical care
-
Justice Health, which is a business unit in the Department of Justice and Community Safety, is responsible for planning, coordinating and overseeing the delivery of health services to courts, police cells, and Victoria’s public and private prisons.
Justice Health contracts with a range of public and private health service providers who are in turn responsible for delivering primary health services in Victorian prisons.
Each prison in Victoria is supposed to offer a range of health care treatment in addition to general practitioner services, including podiatry, physiotherapy, audiology, optometry, dentistry, mental health nursing, and immunisation programs. Some prisons also have visiting psychiatrists or psychologists, or special mental health care units. People in prison are not eligible for Medicare while in prison.
Some prisons have Aboriginal liaison officers who can assist with access to culturally appropriate services. People in prison who require involuntary mental health care are transferred to the Thomas Embling Hospital under the Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022 (Vic). Involuntary treatment is not provided in prisons in Victoria.
For those detained in men’s prisons, the Acute Assessment Unit at the Melbourne Assessment Prison is a special mental health unit that provides ongoing treatment for people with serious psychiatric conditions. People detained in men’s prisons can also access ongoing treatment for psychiatric problems at the Thomas Embling Hospital. Ravenhall Correctional Centre has inpatient and outpatient forensic mental health services. People detained in women’s prisons with serious psychiatric conditions who require ongoing treatment can be treated in the Marrmak Unit at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, or in the Thomas Embling Hospital.
People in custody have access to Medication Assisted Treatment for Opioid Dependence (MATOD). Access to this treatment requires informed consent and a determination by health staff on a case-by-case assessment basis. Access to treatment will only be withheld or withdrawn when it is no longer considered clinically appropriate or safe, or where non-compliance presents a clinical risk.
-
Under section 47(1)(f) of the Corrections Act, people in prison in Victoria have:
… the right to have access to reasonable medical care and treatment necessary for the preservation of health including, with the approval of the principal medical officer but at the prisoner’s own expense, a private registered medical practitioner, physiotherapist or chiropractor chosen by the prisoner.
Application to Consult a Private Practitioner forms are available to people in prison. Applications must be signed by the prison’s health service manager, then sent to Justice Health for approval.
Medical care
Chapter: 3.8: Imprisonment and the rights of people in prison
Contributor: Amity Mara, Manager – Policy, Advocacy and Projects Fitzroy Legal Service and Monique Hurley, Associate Legal Director, Human Rights Law Centre
Current as of: 1 September 2024
Law Handbook Page: 200
Next Section: Employment and money
