7. Health »I cannot speak about what happened to me.« A.S. from Syria156 ■ A.S. was arrested in January 2011. While in detention, she applied for asylum, but stayed a total of four months notwithstanding the fact that she had serious psychological problems. »I cannot speak about what happened to me.« After two months, the psychologist diagnosed her with deep depression result in from a psycho-traumatic incident during her trip to Greece, and warned that she had suicidal tendencies. After almost another month, she received access to a psychiatrist who made the same diagnosis and gave her medication (see 8.4.). After three days, the GCR-lawyer requested from the DIPE a medical attestation of A.S.’s mental health condition in order to take legal actions against the detention. The certificate was issued after more than one month, on May 19. Two days later, in the afternoon, A.S. was released without informing the psychologist nor the lawyer, without providing her with medication, medical certificates or money, and without any referral to a mental institution. Neither did they inform her about her legal rights. Until today, the lawyer has no information about her whereabouts. then transferred back to Soufli borderguard station where she was held in mixed detention.154 When the mission visited the detention centre, she was the only woman among more than 100 men. She was suffering from gynecologic haemorrhage and was in pain. »Sometimes I can’t make it to the toilet on time. There’s a huge cue. And then everyone notices that I’m bleeding. I have to take some medicines. I should take them on a full stomach, but food is served at intervals that do not coincide with my prescriptions, and often it’s of bad quality. In here, I have also started suffering from stomach aches«. J.A had been transferred to hospital six times to treat the haemorrhage, but had neither been released soon nor transferred to a special cell for women. 154 J.A. from Egypt; December 19, 2010 – Soufli 155 B.M. and H.H. from Iran;December 19, 2011 – Soufli 47 7.8. Lack of medical information and access to medical attestation With interpreters constantly being understaffed, and as a consequence of detention conditions, detainees do not receive proper information about their health condition. Many are released without having their medical certificates delivered, and without information about requirements for their further therapy, or about organisations that could continue treating them. Results of medical examinations, certificates and prescriptions issued by hospitals are rarely collected, and medical files are not compiled for each detainee to keep these documents. Without a medical file, attestations cannot be found. During our missions we observed that, especially in cases of police violence, suicide attempts or hunger strikes, no such certificates could be retrieved. B.M. and H.H. 155, for example, had been on hunger strike for some days. They were hospitalized twice. Authorized lawyers asked for access to their files, requesting medical documents concerning their transfer to the hospital. However, no such medical document was kept in their files. Not even the date of their hospitalization was recorded, or at least it was not provided to the lawyers. If a detainee, or his/her lawyer, requests a copy of a medical certificate, the process is extremely lenghty and cumbersome, if not impossible for the detainee to face on his/ her own. The responsible authority to issue the medical certificates is the Regional Health Directorate (ΔΗΕ) in Thessaloniki. The procedure may take weeks. In this way, detainees with health problems in need of immediate legal support have to endure detention over a longer period of time, under conditions further deteriorating their health. 156 A.S. from Syria – Fylakio; Interview GCR-lawyer in Orestiada, October 2011