What healthcare is provided in prison?

In Victoria, health care in prisons is the responsibility of the Department of Justice and Community Safety (DJCS).

Justice Health (a business unit of DJCS) is the government department responsible for making sure people in Victorian prisons get proper healthcare. Justice Health sets the standards for health care in prisons, manages the contracts for prison healthcare and monitors the delivery of healthcare in prisons.

The actual healthcare services in prisons are provided by a system of multiple health care providers. Individual prisons have different healthcare providers working at them, and these providers can change over time.

Currently, the health service providers based at Victorian prisons are:

Healthcare services available in prison

Healthcare services that should be available to people in prison include:

• General practitioner (GP) services
• General nursing
• Mental health nursing
• Pharmacy (medication)
• Pathology (urine and blood testing)
• Radiology (scans)
• Dentist and oral health care
• Audiology (hearing)
• Optometry (eyesight)
• Podiatry (foot-related)
• Physiotherapy;
• Opioid substitution therapy (OST – like Buprenorphine)

Public health waiting lists

If you are referred to a specialist health service outside prison, you will be placed on the same public health waiting lists as people in the community. The waiting time on public health waiting lists will depend on the urgency of your medical issue.