Legal Strategy and Principles of Medical Ethics in Prisons for Health System Policy in the Corona Pandemic

 The corona pandemic, which was observed in China in December 2019, soon spread to other parts of the world and became a critical issue for the right to public health at the international level. The right to health is important and vital for societies today and one of the criteria and values in the principles of medical ethics is the observance of justice in equal access to health services; Prisoners, like other members of society, have access to it as a more vulnerable group of society whose law restricts some of their freedoms. The purpose of this study is to review the strategies of the Iranian legal system and international instruments on the right to health of prisoners and the principles of medical ethics in prisons and legal strategy to observe the principles of medical ethics in prisons in order for health policy makers to benefit from it during the corona pandemic.

 This research is of review type and its information has been collected by library-documentary method.

Ethical Considerations:

 Ethical considerations have been observed in all stages of research, including the study and collection of data, their documentation, analysis and publication.

 The research findings indicate that in the supra-legislative, legislative and sub-legislative norms of the Iranian legal system and binding and guiding international documents on the principles of medical ethics in prisons and the right to health of prisoners, general and specific regulations have been set to observe ethical rules in medicine. Prisoners can also enjoy the right to health as a human right. Therefore, health system policymakers can use them to expand the role of ethics in prisons and to support the health of prisoners.

 Based on the results, it can be said that observing the principles of medical ethics and paying attention to the health of prisoners during the corona pandemic in order to prevent Covid-19 virus and treat infected prisoners should be considered by health policy makers. Therefore, using the norms of the Iranian legal system and international documents, it is necessary to adopt regulations in order to standardize the ethical principles of doctors, nurses and health center staff in prisons to maintain the health of prisoners during the corona pandemic.