The HSE and the Irish Prison Service (IPS) have begun a series of joint engagement events to look at ways they can work more effectively together, ensuring that people in prison receive access to healthcare of a standard available in the wider community, and mindful of the specific circumstances of imprisonment.
This work is specifically looking at challenges around continuity of care, from custody to community, including how information flows between the community and prison health services.
Ther Director General of the Irish Prison Service, Caron McCaffrey and the Governor of Mountjoy, Ray Murray have welcomed the HSE to Mountjoy Prison to witness the work of the health service there.
They said, “In Ireland, our prisoner population has many challenges, including higher level of health needs than their peers in the community. We have also seen increasing numbers of people in the Irish Prison estate, with overcrowding in our prisons now a key factor in managing healthcare and other needs.
“Prison Health is Public Health: by addressing the health needs of people in prison, we can reduce the costs to the Irish health services of treating diseases by preventing or diagnosing at a much earlier stage, we can prevent prisons being a source of infectious disease amplification, which can risk outbreaks not only in prisons but also in the wider population, we can address health-related drivers of offending behaviour (including substance use and mental health needs), and we can ultimately reduce the cost to both health and justice systems.
“HSE and the IPS will continue to work together to improve health and reduce health inequalities in all our people, in prisons and in the wider community. We will also explore opportunities in digital care which have been deployed in other settings which could be successfully deployed in prisons to enhance healthcare of prisoners.”
