THE OUTCOME OF RUSSIA'S MEMBERSHIPIN THE NORTHERN DIMENSION PARTNERSHIP PRISON HEALTH EXPERT GROUP
The International partnership «Northern Dimension» includes states located in the northern region of the earth planet: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Russia, Denmark, Germany, Poland and the Baltic countries. The work of the partnership «Northern Dimension (ND)» covers a wide range of areas: education, culture, nuclear and environmental safety, the development of gas condensate and oil fields, health, transport, energy, science, etc. In particular, joint projects relate to the cooperation between the Northern Dimension countries in the Arctic, in the Baltic and Barents Seas, in developing of Northern Sea commercial use, the Baltic oil pipeline creation and other projects. Under the umbrella of the partnership of health and social wellbeing an independent group of experts of prison health is working since 2015.The work of this EG is headed by the elected national representative of Germany and his deputy the national representative of Latvia. The main goal of the prison health expert group work is to reduce the spread of typical diseases in prison (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infections, cardiovascular diseases, malignoma et cetera). In 2016-2018 five meetings of the group were performed (Berlin - two meetings, Riga, Moscow, Warsaw), in four of which Russian representative made reports about the Russian prison medical care status. In these reports it has been shown that the penitentiary medicine of the Russian Federation steadily and methodically demonstrates positive changes that are reflected in the dynamics of the main intensive and extensive indicators. There is notable positive outcome of the group meetings with Russian membership. Representatives of the north European countries prison systems have received firsthand reliable information about the Russian penitentiary healthcare system status. In high level expert discussions the presented data are evaluated and responced suggested. This will undoubtedly contribute to the process of further improvement of international relations with benefits for Russian system.