ERE Case: The Court of Seville reactivates the consultations on the admission to prison of Griñán | Spain | The USA Print

The Seville Court has given the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the PP, which acts as a private prosecution, three days to present allegations to the report submitted by the medical services of the Seville prison on the possibility that the former president of the Board, José Antonio Griñán, sentenced to six years in prison for embezzlement by the case of the ERE, he can continue to receive treatment for his cancer if he goes to prison. The document, to which this newspaper has had access, is not decisive in this regard and is limited to a description of the health care and hospital discharges carried out by the institution.

The magistrates of the First Section of the Hearing decided to postpone Griñán’s entry into prison until he finished the radiotherapy sessions he had to undergo after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. The judges adopted the measure after both Anti-Corruption and the PP were in favor of suspending the execution of the sentence, in view of the forensic doctor’s report, who was in favor of the former socialist leader not entering a center penitentiary. “We understand that the postponement of the execution of the sentence is appropriate, until the prisoner completes the radiotherapy sessions given the inconveniences and risks that the treatment from the penitentiary center could entail, both from the point of view of the disease, as well as the dynamics of the center”, indicated the order, in which it was emphasized that once the treatment -of 23 continuous sessions- Griñán should be examined again by the forensic doctor to “assess again, with more data, the convenience and possibility of their admission to the penitentiary center.

The court agreed to collect the report from the prison on January 13 and this Monday the parties were notified. The document is not categorical about whether Griñán will be able to continue the necessary treatment for the cancer that appears to be in that prison, but merely lists the rights to medical-health care that inmates have and details the medical services available to the prison. institution, its human resources and the organization and operation of that medical care.

Transfers to hospitals to receive cancer treatment

The report indicates that in the compliance unit and in the preventive unit there are five primary care consultations, two waiting rooms, a treatment room and a nursing module where inmates who may need more attention and follow-up are admitted. and in which there is also a medical consultation and a treatment room. In the mixed unit there is also a medical consultation and a treatment room. The document specifies that “currently and due to remodeling works in the center, only one of the infirmaries with capacity for 21 patients is in use.” The staff is made up of five doctors specializing in Family and Community Medicine, a pharmacist, eight nurses, a nursing supervisor, five clinical assistants and three administrative staff.

Regarding the medical care model, it replicates the operation of the primary care of the Andalusian Health Service (SAS). Regarding specialized care, which is what would correspond to Griñán, patients are referred to the Virgen del Rocío and Virgen Macarena hospitals in Seville. First, they are sent the medical report from the prison doctor, requesting that the inmates be treated in those centers. The interrelationship with these hospitals is made for all specialties, including oncology and dialysis. Once the request is submitted, the patient is considered to be available to meet the requirements established by each specialist, and it is the prison that is in charge of all pertinent procedures so that the necessary care can be provided. Among these are diagnostic procedures —specialized tests, such as a CT scan— or therapeutic procedures —such as chemotherapy sessions, radiotherapy, rehabilitation, physiotherapy, dialysis “in as many sessions as the specialist deems necessary” and “with the frequency considered”— .

“There are many patients who from the different specialties have been and are treated continuously, so that their review consultations are carried out by said specialists with the periodicity that they estimate,” the report concludes. Throughout 2021, 576 oncological consultations and 535 radiotherapy sessions were carried out in Spanish prisons, the latter all outside prisons, according to the latest report. General Report of Penitentiary Institutions which collects data for that year. There are no statistics on the number of executions of sentences with jail sentences suspended for serious health reasons, according to sources from the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia consulted by this newspaper.

In the report, however, the concern of Penitentiary Institutions about the insufficiency of doctors in some penitentiary centers “is causing difficulties in the health care of persons deprived of their liberty” – although it does not specify that this circumstance occurs in the center of Seville― and “the great problem in relation is the urgent departures to hospitals due to the lack” of agents of the National Police —a fact that does occur in that prison―.

Given the imprecision of the document transferred by the Seville prison, the PP will wait, as it has done in the entire case of the political piece of the ERE, to know the pronouncement of the Prosecutor’s Office to adhere to its opinion, as they have explained to this daily sources close to the popular leadership in Andalusia.