Sixth meeting of Co-ordinating Council of the Project "Strengthening Healthcare and Human Rights Protection in Prisons in Armenia" was held

Today, the sixth meeting of the Co-ordinating Council of the Project "Strengthening Healthcare and Human Rights Protection in Prisons in Armenia" took place with the participation of Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Suren Krmoyan, Deputy Head of the Council of Europe Office in Yerevan Loreta Vioiu and Head of the Criminal Law Co-operation Unit of the Council of Europe Tanya Rakushich Radzhich.

Greeting the participants, Deputy Minister Krmoyan attached importance to meetings in such format in terms of summing up the completed activities and outlining the future actions.

During the discussion, Suren Krmoyan touched upon the reforms implemented within the scope of the Project and, in this context, underlined that "Penitentiary Medical Centre" SNCO would start operating from 1 July, setting new quality standards in the field of prison healthcare.

Loreta Vioiu highly appreciated the co-operation with the Ministry of Justice for capacity-building of the employees of the medical units of 11 penitentiary institutions and expressed joy for the establishment of the new "Penitentiary Medical Centre" SNCO, expressing willingness to further assist in advancement of the Centre as well.

 Touching upon the need for availability of technical resources, Tanya Rakushich Radzhich also parallely attached importance to the availability of well-trained personnel in the prison healthcare system.

Subsequently, the process of implementation of the activities carried out within the scope of the Project and the process of implementation of the activities to be carried out in the near future in terms of 6 month-periods were presented to the participants of the meeting by the Project’s manager Arman Poghosyan.

At the end of the working discussion, among a number of other issues, the parties also reached an agreement on the next meeting.