You're reading: Council of Europe urges Ukrainian authorities to provide treatment to Tymoshenko, Lutsenko outside prison

The Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) has urged the Ukrainian authorities to ensure medical assistance is provided to all prisoners that need it.

The committee said this in a report issued on Wednesday, according to its website.

The report was prepared on the basis of the findings of its experts’ visit to Ukraine on November 29 – December 6, 2011.

The committee said that the prison authorities were responsible for the health of all prisoners.

“All efforts possible must be made to ensure that a precise diagnosis is promptly established and that the appropriate treatment required by the state of health of the person concerned is provided to all prisoners,” the report reads.

The experts also examined the health care provided to former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko and former Acting Defense Minister Valeriy Ivaschenko.

“The committee must express its concern that in respect of each of the three above-mentioned persons, considerable delays occurred – for various reasons – in arranging specialized medical examinations outside the Kyiv pre-trial detention facility. Problems of this kind have been repeatedly observed by the CPT during all previous visits to the Kyiv detention facility, as well as to other penitentiary establishments in Ukraine,” the statement reads.

The committee called on the Ukrainian authorities to take all of the necessary measures to ensure that in future, all prisoners who are in need of specialist treatment or examinations are transferred to an outside hospital without undue delay.

The CPT asked the Ukrainian authorities to provide a further update on all the medical interventions that have been performed with respect to Ivaschenko, Lutsenko and Tymoshenko. The committee also asked for a copy of the report drawn up by the members of the international medical commission who examined Tymoshenko on February 14 and 15, 2012.