- 47 - a. introduction 101. In its report on the 2001 visit, the CPT noted that the Prison Law of 1999 contained a number of provisions on health care in prison, which are in line with the position advocated by the Committee; most notably the general principle of equivalence of care. However, the findings of the delegation during the 2005 visit illustrate, all too vividly, that the health care services in all the prisons visited cannot be considered as acceptable. More specifically, many of the previous recommendations by the CPT concerning issues such as staffing, medical screening upon admission, medical confidentiality and health-care policy concerning drug abuse have not been implemented by the Greek authorities33. The CPT recommends that the Greek authorities urgently re-examine the general state of health care services in prison establishments, so as to bring them into compliance with the provisions of the law. Improving health care in prison will necessitate inter alia the hiring of additional qualified medical staff. 102. During the 2001 visit the delegation had been informed that the transfer of responsibility for prison health care from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Health was under consideration. In 2005, the delegation was informed that such a transfer was one of the action items for the Ministry of Justice, whereas the Ministry of Health said that there was no ongoing discussion on this issue. The CPT has already expressed its favourable opinion on such a transfer34 and, therefore, would like to receive clarification as to whether such a transfer remains under active consideration and, if so, receive information on the timescale envisaged for the transfer of responsibility. b. health care in the prisons visited i. resources and access to health care 103. Once again the situation in Korydallos Men’s Prison gave considerable cause for concern. For an establishment currently accommodating more than 2,000 prisoners, it is astonishing that there is still no full-time general practitioner. Instead there is a doctor on-call during the late afternoons and nights, and visits by a general practitioner twice a week for two hours; a psychiatrist and a dentist are the only permanent medical staff along with two qualified nurses. A number of specialists (ophthalmologist, orthopedic surgeon, urologist, otolaryngologist, pulmologist, cardiologist, neurologist), including a second psychiatrist, were on contract to visit the prison twice a week for two hours. It appeared that even these hours were not respected in some cases. Additional support was provided by eight unqualified nurses (i.e. guards) and two inmates (one of the inmates was creating an electronic archive for the medical documentation). 33 34 cf. CPT/Inf (2002) 31, paragraphs 85 to 98. cf. CPT/Inf (2002) 31, paragraph 86.