The Ministry of Internal Affairs asks for access to medical confidentiality

The Ministry of Internal Affairs asks for access to the data of Russians with mental disorders, patients with alcoholism and drug addiction. With the corresponding letter, the department in March turned to Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, Kommersant writes .

The letter says that the lack of information from medical institutions about the presence of a dangerous disease effectively deprives the police of the ability to monitor "persons suffering from diseases in order to prevent them from committing crimes." According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in 2018, out of the total number of those who committed crimes, “every third was in a state of alcoholic or drug intoxication,” and “the number of criminal cases sent to court committed in a state of insanity amounted to more than 7,000.” The Ministry of Internal Affairs proposes to create "a system in which information about people with mental disorders, alcoholism and drug addiction will be entered, with its subsequent integration with the information bases of the Ministry of Internal Affairs."

Earlier, the traffic police developed a draft law on the creation of a joint database. But the document was not submitted to the State Duma, as the Ministry of Health insisted on "the position of uncompromising observance of medical secrecy."

The Russian Society of Psychiatrists and the Bekhterev Institute called the proposal of the Ministry of Internal Affairs redundant and violating the norms of the Constitution.

“Crimes committed while under the influence of alcohol and drugs account for 36% of all crimes,” the psychiatrists said in their response. “However, committing an offense while intoxicated does not mean that the offender is addicted to alcohol or drugs.”

Providing the Ministry of Internal Affairs with a database, doctors say, “contradicts the principles of medical ethics” and “actually stigmatizes people with mental and behavioral disorders, since it is based on the belief that mental illness itself implies a propensity to commit crimes.”