CAT/OP/PRT/1/add.1
I.
Overarching issues
A.
Institutional framework
1.
The Subcommittee welcomes integration of human rights in training and educational
curriculum for law-enforcement and prison personnel. It encourages the State party to
ensure that the educational programmes for state officials dealing with detained and
arrested persons include international standards relating to torture and ill-treatment
and that all professionals involved in documentation and investigation of torture and
ill-treatment receive adequate training on the Istanbul Protocol
2.
Nowadays all training programmes for Law-Enforcement bodies include matters
about the Human Rights. Stressing that the 1st Course on Criminal Prevention, Community
Policing and Human Rights in the GNR is currently taking place, where the opening subject
matter and which constituted the first module is precisely on "Human Rights".
3.
The Subcommittee recommends that the Mental Health Act is revised without
further delay to bring it into compliance with the CRPD and that the monitoring of its
current Chapter II is strengthened, including through providing the Commission for
Follow-Up with adequate resources and support.
4.
The revision of the mental health law is within the scope of the National Mental Health
Program, and is to start in 2019. The objective is to review some aspects related to the
compulsory detention procedure, and to make it more compatible with the CRPD conventions.
The Ministries of Health and Justice have already been asked to nominate the new
Commission for the Follow-up of Compulsory Internment.
5.
Regarding the online monitoring of the number of compulsory hospitalizations in the
country, we hope that the Ministry of Health’s IT Office (SPMS) might be able to start
implementing it during 2019.
6.
The Subcommittee urges the State party to allocate adequate budgetary
resources to ensure the adequate administrative, medical and security staffing of prisons
and psychiatric and forensic units.
7.
The number of staff required and the professional profiles needed are subject to a
permanent and continuous assessment, which is transmitted to the Ministry of Justice. The
Ministry of Justice considers these needs according to the available resources.
8.
With regard to staff in psychiatric units (including the forensic units), there is in fact
a smaller number of professionals than necessary. Actually, the scarcity of human resources
(generally speaking) has been identified in all previous assessments of the public mental
health system for a long time. In 2019, the National Mental Health Taskforce (belonging to
the Directorate General of Health, DGS) was finally included in the process of allocating
newly-existing psychiatrists (for adult and child/adolescents), with a very good outcome –
for the first time, mental health services farthest from the large cities (Lisboa, Porto, Coimbra)
were contemplated with much more places than until now.
9.
However, there is still a general shortage of non-medical resources throughout the
country (eg, psychologists, nurses, occupational therapists, social workers), which needs to
be corrected progressively, despite the financial constraints on hiring them. This is a major
challenge for the mental health system: without this corrective measures, it will be difficult
to improve the delivery of mental health care and to achieve a true reform of the system.
10.
In a broader perspective, the Government has recently approved a new regulation for
the forensic units, which will allow for a reconfiguration of the forensic system, creating for
the first time a step-down model with transitional residences for the community. Following
this approach, Hospital Magalhães de Lemos (Porto) already started the construction of a
new forensic unit, alongside with a halfway residential facility.
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