It's Your Health: Receiver Update

The report noted 2 main problems:
1. 16 of the 17 prisons are not merely failing to document that inmates received their medications, they are also failing to provide the medications to the inmates. Both types of failure denote noncompliance and poor performance. This includes “alarmingly low scores in tuberculosis treatment, which affects the health of inmates and staff alike.” [p. 3].
2. Poor access to medical providers and services. No prisons met the 75 % minimum score that the court set for moderate adherence on access to providers and services, while seven prisons scored 60 % or less.

Here are some of the other measures:
• From 2006-2008 the overall prisoner death rate decreased from 249 per 100,000 to 216.
• The number of deaths medical reviewers deemed “likely preventable” deaths dropped from 18 in 2006 to 5 in 2008.
• The rate of “possibly preventable” deaths increased from 48 to 61. The receiver says that part of the reason for this may be that the receiver’s offi ce raised the threshold for a death to be deemed “non–preventable.”

The OIG report and the receiver, Clark Kelso, say that the quality of health care providers now working in the prisons has also improved greatly. But numbers are just numbers. And even if a prison has a score that meets the minimum score- like CCWF- it does not mean that the prison has met the “constitutional standards”— this can only be decided by the courts.

The OIG report and the receiver, Clark Kelso, say that the quality of health care providers now working in the prisons has also improved greatly. But numbers are just numbers. And even if a prison has a score that meets the minimum score- like CCWF- it does not mean that the prison has met the “constitutional standards”— this can only be decided by the courts. The Receiver was mandated to make a comprehensive plan to improve every aspect of health care inside, from record keeping, to access to care, to quality of health care providers. The State has fought against compliance at every step, mostly decrying the cost of providing care to prisoners while the rest of the State was in a huge budget crunch.

NONE OF US denies that Calif. is strapped for money, that health care, education, public transportation, housing and all necessary social services are being cut. But the answer is not in denying basic, humane, constitutionally mandated care and services to people who are locked up and have no ability to get care anywhere else.

NONE OF US denies that Calif. is strapped for money, that health care, education, public transportation, housing and all necessary social services are being cut. But the answer is not in denying basic, humane, constitutionally mandated care and services to people who are locked up and have no ability to get care anywhere else. So what do you think? How do you evaluate the care that you now receive at CCWF, VSPW or CIW? What changes, for the better or for the worse, do you experience?

Last updated January 6, 2011 05:30 PM