Dr. Fadi Meroueh, head of the health unit at the prison of Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone, France and President of Health without Barriers, the European Federation for Prison Health, questions in this interview the paradoxical injunctions to prison doctors to both treat incarcerated patients and provide medical expertise on the health status of the prisoners to the prison administration.
“One cannot be a treating physician and an expert physician at the same time. (…) Any request that does not come from the person is not care. It’s expertise. If the prison administration asks us “can this person stay in the solitary confinement area, in the disciplinary area?”: this is expertise. And already there, the code of deontology and ethics prevents me and forbids me to do it.“
Interview filmed in April 2020