A fact-finding mission on the current organisation of healthcare within the prison system, reinforced by the expertise of Council of Europe consultants Jorg Pont, Marzena Ksel and Svetlana Doltu, was organised on 1-2 October 2024 in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova.  

In line with the longstanding recommendations of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the European Prison Rules (EPR), the mission looked into the ways of optimising the governance, organisation and management of healthcare in prisons, including the opportunities for integrating it into the public health service.

In this context, as a first step, the Council of Europe will provide the authorities with a comparative analysis of existing models of health care organisation in prisons in different Council of Europe member states, including those that were transferred from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Health, with recommendations on feasible models for the Republic of Moldova.

The Head of the Council of Europe Office in Chisinau, Mr. Falk Lange who led the talks with the national authorities, emphasised the Council of Europe’s continuous commitment to supporting them in enhancing the quality of healthcare provided in prisons, including steps to ensure that the health policy in prisons is integrated into, and compatible with, the national health policy.

The mission was organised under the auspices of the Project “Strengthening the prison and probation reforms, provision of health care and the treatment of patients in closed institutions,” financed and implemented as part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for the Republic of Moldova 2021-2024, and included meetings with the Parliamentary Standing Committees on Social Protection, Health and Family and National Security, Defence and Public Order, the Ministries of Justice and Health, the National Health Insurance Company, the Office of the Ombudsman, the National Council for the Prevention of Torture, as well as consultations with most the active civil society and international organisations in the field such as Promo Lex, Amnesty International, UNODC, and UNAIDS.