INTEGRATION OF MEDICAL CARE FOR PRISONERS INTO THE CIVILIAN SECTOR AS A PERSPECTIVE DIRECTION OF PENAL REFORM

The article provides a way of reforming the organization and ensuring the right to health care for convicts by transferring responsibility for the medical sector in penitentiary institutions from the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine to the Ministry of Health. In European practice, there are three models of subordination of the health care system in penitentiary institutions: departmental, non-departmental, and mixed. It is established that most European countries use a departmental system of subordination of penitentiary medicine. At the same time, there is a transition to a mixed model or transfer to the general health care sphere. On the basis of the studied practice of European countries, the article identifies the main advantages and disadvantages that are recorded in a particular model of providing penitentiary medicine. It is argued that the most common problem which remains using different models is the understaffing of medical units. The solution to this problem abroad is seen in the involvement of students and interns of medical schools to work in prison medical units. The results of the survey of Ukrainian students and interns of medical education institutions show that in our country awareness of the state of medical care in penitentiary institutions remains low.