Corrections Act 2004

Corrections system - Statutory roles and responsibilities - Other persons with other powers and functions in relation to prisoners

20: Medical officers

You could also call this:

"Prisons must have doctors to care for sick or hurt prisoners"

The chief executive makes sure every prison has enough medical officers to help prisoners who are sick or hurt. You need medical care and treatment when you are not well, and prisons must provide this. The chief executive is in charge of making sure this happens in every prison, except for Police jails.

Every contractor who runs a prison must also make sure there are enough medical officers to care for prisoners. This means that every prison, no matter who runs it, must have medical officers to help prisoners who need medical care. The contractor is responsible for ensuring this happens in the prisons they manage.

Each medical officer must be a medical practitioner, which means they are a doctor who can give medical care and treatment to prisoners.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

This page was last updated on 29 June 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM295418.

Topics:

Health and wellbeing > Healthcare servicesCrime and justice > Criminal lawGovernment and voting > Government departments

19B: Delegation of powers and functions of health centre managers, or

"Health centre managers can give some of their jobs to other health professionals."

21: Protection of officers in discharge of functions, or

"Corrections officers have the same powers as police officers when doing their job"

Part 2Corrections system
Statutory roles and responsibilities: Other persons with other powers and functions in relation to prisoners

20Medical officers

The chief executive must ensure that every prison (other than a Police jail) has a sufficient number of medical officers to meet prisoners' needs for medical care and medical treatment.
Every contractor must ensure that every contract prison managed by that contractor has a sufficient number of medical officers to meet prisoners' needs for medical care and medical treatment.
Each medical officer must be a medical practitioner.

Notes

Section 20: replaced, on 4 June 2013, by section 8 of the Corrections Amendment Act 2013 (2013 No 5).