Erin Patterson has been gaining weight in prison after barely leaving her cell. Photo \/ Supreme Court of Victoria<\/p>\n
The Department of Corrections told the Herald Sun Patterson\u2019s treatment had been authorised solely on the basis of clinical need.<\/p>\n
Corrections authorities say the medication is intended to reduce Patterson\u2019s risk of developing type 2 diabetes and other health complications associated with rapid weight gain during prolonged confinement, 7News reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccessing medication in Victorian prisons is like receiving medication in a hospital setting,\u201d according to Corrections Victoria.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis means people in prison do not need to pay for their medications.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t place any restrictions on what medications can be prescribed to people in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n
Victorian Shadow Minister for Police and Corrections Brad Batten argued in June that excessive weight gain among prisoners could point to wider problems within the corrections system.<\/p>\n
Mushroom lunch leftovers taken from Erin Patterson’s home. <\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe we should be using prescriptions for more exercise, or a government should be reviewing what they are feeding prisoners here in Victoria,\u201d Batten said.<\/p>\n
The issue was discussed on Australian breakfast programme Sunrise, with commentators questioning whether taxpayers should meet the cost of Patterson\u2019s treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cDiabetes costs the healthcare system a lot of money, but who is going to get behind someone who is convicted of three murders and an attempted murder?\u201d commentator Cath Webber said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a joke that taxpayers are picking up the bill for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commentator James Willis pointed to previous supply pressures and the difficulty some Australians had experienced accessing the medication.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is that this is a drug that has had shortages in recent times, on and off, and also a drug that some Australians have tried to get access to and can\u2019t for various medical reasons,\u201d Willis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it passes the pub test.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erin Patterson has been gaining weight in prison after barely leaving her cell. Photo \/ Supreme Court of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[74,15385,1135,1558,5767,3401,6023,36924,2109,3014,134,3375,2225,524,4754,61390,26482,111,139,69,7014,14233,53468,8442,7565,35028,27561,18216,102],"class_list":["post-593548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-after","tag-approved","tag-australian","tag-been","tag-convicted","tag-drug","tag-erin","tag-expense","tag-family","tag-gain","tag-health","tag-killed","tag-loss","tag-medication","tag-members","tag-murderer","tag-mushrooms","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ozempic","tag-patterson","tag-poison","tag-prison","tag-receive","tag-taxpayers","tag-triple","tag-weight","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}