The Colombian Ministry of Justice began a pilot test in 12 prisons to bring telemedicine services to inmates.
The telemedicine pilot test will manage to serve more than 38 thousand inmates in 12 prisons in Colombia. The strategy aims to facilitate medical care for this population and reduce costs of transfer to nearby hospitals.
“The most important thing about this is that we are going to fight corruption, we seek less risk in logistics to transfer an inmate and cost reduction; and the latest technology in telemedicine allows a person deprived of liberty who has a problem to be seen electronically and, according to this, depending on the severity, a specialist can see it”, explained the Minister of Justice, Wilson Ruiz.
This strategy will benefit 38,869 inmates in 12,000 prisons, which represents more than a third of the prisoners covered by the National Health Fund.
The government hopes that, in the future, telemedicine services can be extended to all Colombian prisons and expand access to health services for the population deprived of liberty.
However, to extend the program it will be necessary to make various investments in technological and communications infrastructure. In addition, they also plan the acquisition of virtual devices for reading and consulting the medical history of prisoners.
