Selected topics from 2016 29 Health services The health care services provided in prisons should be equivalent to the services provided to the general population. Inmates must be offered services adapted to their individual needs following an individual assessment. During the NPM’s visits, inmates with mental health problems were often highlighted as a particularly vulnerable group. Several prisons described an increase in the number of women with mental health problems in recent years. The NPM found that many women have an unmet need for mental health support services. Both prison staff and administration as well as health services have echoed this concern. A high proportion of female inmates have been the victims of sexual abuse. Many have negative experiences of men. This could make it difficult for women to seek help from male health personnel. The Parliamentary Ombudsman has recommended that steps be taken to ensure that women who, for whatever reason, want to see a female doctor have access to one. The NPM's visits show that access to substance abuse rehabilitation varies greatly between women and men, despite knowledge of widespread substance abuse among female inmates. In interviews with women serving in mixed prisons, it was clear that many want the opportunity to take part in additional and more extensive substance abuse rehabilitation programmes. After visits to prisons where such opportunities have been inadequate, the Parliamentary Ombudsman has recommended that women be offered substance abuse treatment equivalent to that offered to male inmates. Launch of the thematic report "Women in prison" Contact with the outside world Contact with the outside world, and particularly with family and children, is important to prison inmates. Since few prisons in Norway take female inmates, women risk being detained in prisons far away from their home. This makes it difficult for some inmates to receive visits from family. This applies in particular to children who are too young to travel alone and children who do not live in Norway. Very few of the prisons that the NPM has visited provide inmates with the possibility of communicating with family via Skype or similar modern means of communication. The Parliamentary Ombudsman has recommended in several visit reports that the Norwegian Correctional Service introduce such technology, also in high-security prisons.