Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
Inmates at some of Aotearoa's largest prisons have had to wait up to three months to see a health professional.
Figures released under the Official Information Act for the first quarter period this year show if a person was behind bars in Otago, the maximum wait time to see a dentist is 91 days. To see a nurse they could be waiting up to 68 days, while the average time to see a doctor is two weeks.
At Rolleston Prison in Christchurch, inmates have had to wait a maximum of 85 days to see a nurse, while the maximum time they will wait to see a dentist is 70 days.
The delays are not much better at Mt Eden in Auckland, where inmates have had to wait up to 79 days to see a nurse, while the maximum wait at Wellington's Rimutaka Prison is 79 days.
Lawyer and Howard League secretary Buster Thompson told Checkpoint the complaints were not uncommon and prisoners were also complaining when they were getting follow-up treatments.
"The Department of Corrections have obligations under the law to essentially provide healthcare that's reasonably equivalent to what you'd expect in the community, and Corrections regulations also say people who are in prison should be seen promptly about their medical issues," he said.
"I've seen some of the numbers that have come through in relation to being seen, the average wait time could be two weeks."
Prisoners waiting more than 3 months for medical care
Several days' wait for a regular issue would be reasonable, Thompson said.
"I think obviously there are these concerns that they're triaging the more urgent health needs of prisoners, but if there are going to be urgent issues that impact another prisoner's ability to get health care, then there needs to be more resources put into Corrections by the government if they want to ensure that they're meeting their statutory requirements," he said.
In a prison, the consequences of delays meant that prisoners' ability to get effective healthcare was impacted, he said.
"If prisoners are going to be released into the community eventually and they're not receiving the healthcare that they need in a in a prompt time frame, then we are just releasing upset, unhealthy people into the community and that's not going to be conducive to them being at a low risk of reoffending," he said.
"I think they need to be in in a good place to be able to rehabilitate and reintegrate successfully into the community and if they're not healthy, that's one part of the equation that needs to be addressed as well."
Vacancy rates within Corrections for medical staff is high, with the vacancy for nurses at 37 percent at Christchurch Women's Prison, with other prisons with similar percentages.
Thompson said the government has a duty under the law to ensure prisoners are getting adequate healthcare.
"I agree it's definitely difficult. But the government needs to be putting more resources into ensuring that those medical needs are met and the same for the wider health community as well," he said.
He said occasionally there are issues with inmates getting access to medication, such as Ritalin.
"I think it's more of an issue that comes up because it's considered a tradeable medication and there are limitations on whether it can be prescribed," he said.
"I know that there can be reasonably equivalent clinical alternatives, but that's a common complaint we received from prisoners that are not getting the medications they say they require."
He said the ideal outcome was taking medications could happen in a monitored and controlled environment.
"I'm not a doctor and I know that there's some ways you can't necessarily prescribe a medication in a certain way to ensure that it's taken, for example, one alternative could be to crush it rather than to give a pill. But that might not always be the best way to do it medically, but I would have thought there were alternatives," he said.
"It's a complex situation and they don't want to put prisoners into an unsafe environment by having them trading medications with other prisoners. But that's another one that needs to be carefully addressed."
Corrections deputy chief executive Pae Ora Juanita Ryan said there were many different factors, including staffing levels of health professionals, the availability of prison officers to accompany prisoners to appointments, and the need to prioritise urgent cases.
Nurse vacancies rates are more than 30 percent in at least two jails.
She said there had been a big push to recruit, retrain and train new staff, and since the start of the year, they had received more than 8000 applications for nurse roles alone.
Ryan said when a prisoner had an urgent health need, staff would attend to it immediately.