- 38 4. Health-care services a. introduction 85. The Prison Law contains a number of welcome provisions concerning prison health-care services17 which are in line with the position advocated by the CPT; more particularly, the law sets out the general principle of the equivalence of care in prison with that in the outside community. The health care available in certain of the prisons visited in 2001 can be considered acceptable (it was comparable to that provided in the outside community). However, the situation was far less favourable in other establishments. The CPT recommends that the Greek authorities redouble their efforts to provide a satisfactory level of health care in prison establishments in general, in compliance with the provisions of the law. Improving health care in prison will require reinforcing significantly the number of qualified staff in prison health-care services. 86. The delegation was led to understand that the transfer of responsibility for prison health-care services from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Health was under consideration. The CPT can only support such an initiative. As a result, doctors’ independence vis-à-vis prison management would be guaranteed and work in prison would be rendered more attractive, thereby helping to overcome some of the existing difficulties in the recruitment of doctors and nurses (cf. CPT/Inf (2001) 18, Part I, paragraph 146). The CPT would like to receive information on developments in this respect. b. health care in the prisons visited i. resources and access to health care 87. At Khania Prison, the health-care service comprised one half-time trainee doctor and a general practitioner attending the establishment one day a week, as well as an on-call psychiatrist. Having regard to the number of inmates involved (87 at the time of the visit), this complement in terms of doctors may be considered satisfactory; however, the prison was not attended by a dentist and the establishment's health-care service did not have a nurse. Alicarnassos Prison had one half-time trainee doctor, as well as a dentist, a cardiologist and a psychiatrist, each attending one day per week. This may be considered adequate in view of the number and composition of the prison's inmate population. However, the medical team was assisted by only one qualified nurse, a prison officer acting as a nurse, and two prisoners. 17 Cf. Articles 26 to 30 of Law 2776, of 22 December 1999.