Throughout 2002 and 2003 the Open Society Institute (OSI) funded the efforts of ICPS to support a mechanism capable of galvanising governments, non-governmental organisations and donors to make a political and financial commitment to improving health in prisons in countries of the former Soviet Union. The primary objective of the project was to improve public health by:
· strengthening the competence of health care services in prison and their position in the prison hierarchy and
· increasing the involvement of public health services in prisons and prison health services in public health.
During the first year a steering committee under the Chairmanship of Ambassador Harald Siem of the Council of Baltic Sea States was established with the Prison Health Directors of Russia, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Ukraine and representative donors and intergovernmental organisations as members. The steering committee produced an action plan which was launched at a two day seminar in London on Prison healthcare and public health: making the links. Contact was set up with prison health directorates and public health officials in eleven countries and proposals were developed in six countries to link prison and public health. ICPS also published and distributed the first two issues of the Russian/English newsletter, Prison Healthcare News.
In the final year of the project the focus was on creating a mechanism to ensure that there was a standing international commitment to improving health in prisons. Discussions were held with the World Health Organisation (WHO) Europe and the outcomes of these are described below. ICPS worked with WHO and other partners in setting up a WHO Task Force on Prison Health to replace the OSI project steering group. Work also continued with the Council of Baltic Sea States on prison health and four further issues of the newsletter Prison Healthcare News were published in Russian and English, with 1,000 copies of each being distributed throughout the region.