A Company's Troubled Answer for Prisoners With H.I.V.

[Rose Siding]

snip>
Around the nation, the company has drawn criticism from judges, government overseers, and whistle-blowers, and has paid millions of dollars in fines and settlements. In New York, state regulators have faulted Prison Health in several deaths, and are investigating whether it is even operating legally in the state. Yet the company has continued to grow, absorbing rivals and winning new contracts; its largest, serving New York City's jails, was renewed in January, as Dr. Chijide was lodging her complaints.

A low-key but tenacious woman who had a run-in with an earlier employer, Dr. Chijide says the care at Limestone was far from adequate, and there is evidence to support her. In February, the month she resigned, the court monitor described an H.I.V. unit riddled with rats, where broken windows had been replaced with plastic sheeting that was itself falling apart. Thousands of doses of prescribed medications had never been given, as far as the monitor could tell from the slapdash records. No one was being tested for tuberculosis or treated for hepatitis C, which prey on fragile immune systems.
....
There is, of course, a higher authority that Prison Health must answer to: the state official charged with making sure it lives up to its contract. That person is Ruth Naglich, who as associate commissioner of the Alabama Corrections Department is supposed to review the company's work.

Three years ago, Ms. Naglich was a Prison Health executive, vice president for sales and marketing, at the company's headquarters outside Nashville.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/01/national/01prison.html?ei=5094&en=90de2eae780b6ddb&hp=&ex=1122955200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

[Psychmd]

1. I used to work for Prison Health Services in Indiana

They were always short on doctors. I worked at a prison specializing in psychiatric care. There was extreme limitations on the types of medications that were allowed to be prescribed. It was a brand new facility so that was at least good, but to save costs there was always shortages on supplies including paper towels, toilet paper, and soap. I worked there part time and finally had to leave for fear of being held responsible for poor care when I was not there. I worked there one day a week for about a year.

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

2. You mean, it's not like in "Oz"? LOL

Seriously, though, what's disturbing is that many prisoners contract these diseases in prison after being raped. So the penal system victimizes it's own victims. I realize that these are convicted criminals we are talking about, and it's hard to muster much sympathy for some/most of them, but we should aim for a higher standard than the lack of standards which mark a criminal's life.