We all know the de facto right to health care for all persons in custody, whether convicted (prisoners) or not (pretrial detainees). There are legal, ethical, social, and public health reasons why prisoners, as wards of the state, must be supplied with health care. 

The vast majority of inmates will return to society within a few years. Proper care helps to preserve their physical function, which makes it possible for ex-inmates reintegrating into society to embark on productive activities and avoid becoming a burden to all.

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Our directors were approached by Crossroads Prison Ministries to partner with them in order to conduct a health check up camp for inmates of Byculla Prison, Mumbai Central on the 28th of October 2017.

After going through the legal process for permissions, we sought help from the Dean of Lokamnya Tilak Municipal Medical College, and the Heads of Ophthalmology, Dermatology and Community Medicine departments to enlist the presence of 2 female doctors from each department. Medicines were bought as per the recommendations received from the aforesaid specialists.

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On the day of the camp, after a good amount of checking and frisking; we were taken into one of the barracks where the inmates lived where we set up our camp. We had registration, anthropometry, blood pressure, general and special health check-up and dispensing of medicines.

We gave each of the prisoners a card with their diagnosis and prescription written by the doctors present and 3 day doses of the medicines prescribed were given directly to the prisoners. As many as 350 women prisoners were screened and treated on the day.

The funds for the medicines were contributed by our volunteers who wished to help them as much as possible. Also a fair amount of money was donated by the prison ministry for the camp.

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The crossroads prison ministries were grateful for our help and impressed by the organization. The volunteers too had a good time and were impressed by the efficiency. The volunteers and doctors were too keen in helping that section of society that everyone is conveniently oblivious to and ignores as per their convenience.