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• Senatsverwaltung für Justiz Berlin, Abteilung Justivollzug Berlin.
• Z Arztl Fortbild Qualitatssich. 2000 Apr 1; 94 (4): 265-71; discussion 271-2.

AbstractA survey of European standards and recommendations is given defining the status of prison physicians in the 40 member states of the Council of Europe. Taking into account these standards, the two main tasks of prison physicians in Germany are the following: 1.) Prison physicians have to treat and, if possible, cure patients--just as physicians outside the prisons do. 2.) By expressing their opinion and by taking initiatives, prison physicians have to contribute, to the observance of health standards in connection with the determination of confinement conditions (hygiene, cleanliness, physical exercise, ventilation, nutrition) and to develop them further. They also have to raise the prisoners' awareness of the fact that they should care about their health. These tasks are differentiated from requests that are unduly made to prison physicians by external authorities. Prison physicians are not court experts and the duties which they have to perform as physicians in charge of the treatment of prisoners do not include the rendering of opinions on questions relating to a person's fitness to undergo detention or to stand trial. This task is incumbent on experts, whom the courts have to find and appoint elsewhere than among prison physicians. Decisions regarding the determination of specific confinement conditions in a particular case or the granting of privileges to prisoners have to be taken by the prisons' managerial staff or the administration and not by the prison physicians, who, however, are frequently called in either by prisoners for the purpose of asserting alleged claims or by the prisons' managerial staff for the purpose of rejecting claims which the staff regard as unjustified.

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