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Alabama Department of Corrections
Sep 19, 2018
al.com
Federal judge asked to unseal Alabama prison staffing numbers
A lawyer for Alabama's prison system told a federal judge this morning
that the Department of Corrections stopped releasing monthly statistics on
correctional officer staffing levels because the information caused a
security risk in understaffed and crowded prisons. A lawyer representing
mentally ill inmates argued that the public should have access to the
information, partly because the judge cited low staffing levels as a key
cause of what he ruled last year was "horrendously inadequate"
mental health care in prisons. The exchange happened during a hearing
before U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson in the four-year old lawsuit over
mental health care in state prisons. Lawyers representing the prisoners
have asked Thompson to hold the DOC in contempt for failing to expand
mental health staff in accordance with deadlines set in an order by
Thompson. Southern Poverty Law Center attorney Maria Morris said the
plaintiffs have no confidence that the DOC is doing all it can to meet the
staffing mandate and asked Thompson to find the DOC in contempt and appoint
a monitor to oversee the DOC's progress. Bill Lunsford, an attorney
representing the DOC, said the department is not in contempt but is making
"a monumental effort" to recruit more staff through its
contractor, Wexford Health Sources Inc. The DOC has said it expects to
reach the required staffing level by February. The contempt hearings are
expected to continue for several days this week. Ruth Naglich,
the DOC's associate commissioner over health care, was the first witness to
testify this morning. Before addressing the contempt issue specifically,
Thompson heard arguments about the plaintiffs' request to unseal the DOC's
quarterly reports to the court on correctional officer and mental health
staffing. Lunsford said the DOC did not object to making the mental health
staffing numbers public. But he said making the correctional officer
staffing levels public posed a safety risk for inmates and staff because it
signaled how many officers were on duty at specific prisons. "We
believe this is an incredibly sensitive security issue," Lunsford told
Thompson. Morris countered that the correctional officer staffing levels
were listed in the DOC's monthly reports, which are publicly available on
the DOC website, from 2000 until June 2017, when Thompson issued his ruling
that mental health care failed to meet constitutional standards and cited
staffing as a reason. "After that it became sensitive information that
no one could see," Morris told Thompson. "That sounds like
embarrassment. It does not sound like security." Today, Thompson
ordered the mental health staffing levels in the quarterly reports to be
made public but did not announce a decision on the correctional officer
staffing information. Thompson asked Lunsford who made the decision to stop
including the correctional officer staffing in the public monthly reports.
The judge also asked if DOC had any documentation of the reasons it stopped
publicly reporting the numbers. Thompson said he was not demanding answers
today but indicated he would issue an order spelling that out. Thompson
said the DOC would have to show strong justification for keeping the staffing
information sealed from the public. This story was corrected at 5:40 p.m.
to remove statement that inmates are expected to testify by remote video
during the contempt hearings.
Jan
20, 2018 yellowhammernews.com
Alabama’s new prison health-care provider faces legal scrutiny
The chairman of the Alabama Legislature’s joint oversight committee on
prisons says lawmakers must “have transparent oversight” of a health-care
provider picked to service the state’s prisons that is embroiled in legal
turmoil in Mississippi. The Alabama Department of Corrections recently
selected Wexford Health Services, Inc. to provide medical care in state
prisons. Commissioner Jeff Dunn said in December the Pittsburgh-based
company was chosen “based on a combination of quality of care and overall
cost.” The exact details of the contract must still be ironed out, but will
be in the ballpark of $100 million annually to serve Alabama’s 20,000 state
prisoners. The contract calls for a 25 percent boost in staff both for
medical care and mental health, and the Legislature must give final
approval. Wexford is one of a dozen companies that the state of Mississippi
has sued for its alleged involvement in a bribery scheme involving former
state prison commissioner Chris Epps and former legislator Cecil McCrory.
Wexford held Mississippi’s prison health-care contract from 2006 to 2015
and paid consulting fees to McCrory. A grand jury indicted McCrory and Epps
in 2014 on charges that Epps accepted bribes to steer prison contracts to
McCrory. Last year, Epps received a 20-year prison sentence while McCrory
got hit with eight-and-a-half years in prison. Ward told Yellowhammer News
that Dunn told the prison oversight committee on Wednesday that he and a
panel of four others selected Wexford, one of three companies in the
running for the contract. All three of those companies face legal trouble
in other states, Ward said. “All three companies are being sued in
different states for different reasons,” he said. The prison oversight
committee will continue examining the issue when it meets again in
February. “We want to make sure we have transparent oversight of what’s
going on,” Ward said. “Of course, we can’t force them to pick one company
or another, but we have right to get access to how the decision was made,
what’s the process, how much are we talking about.” “The Mississippi case
for Wexford does stand out, and I think it’s something we have an
obligation in the Legislature to ask a lot about and continue questioning
their ability to perform the contract in a good way,” he added. One of the
firms that Wexford beat out was Corizon Correctional Care Health, the
current provider. Alabama now faces a federal lawsuit alleging its
correctional system isn’t providing adequate mental health care for its inmates.
Corizon also faced scrutiny in New York City, which ended a contract with
the firm after it claimed that Corizon hired doctors and workers with
criminal histories. Corizon issued a statement to Yellowhammer News that
said after the company’s contract with New York City expired in 2015, the
new administration chose not to outsource correctional health care moving
forward. “While our company typically screens its own employees, the New
York contract mandated that the city perform all background checks,” the
statement read. “Corizon submitted each and every applicant for the
necessary screening, but an audit later determined the city granted
security clearances without conducting background checks as the contract
required.” “The issues arising in New York had nothing to do with
allegations of kickbacks or bribery. While legal issues arise in prison
health care just as they do in every other medical setting, corruption is
not and should never be considered ‘business as usual’ in our industry,”
the statement continued. Alabama has submitted a plan in the federal suit
that calls for doubling the mental health staff in prisons at an annual
estimated cost of $10 million, with additional money needed for programs.
Prison funding promises to be one of the hottest topics during the 2018
legislative session. Wexford said in a statement it didn’t know about the
misdeeds of Epps or McCrory and was ensnared in Mississippi’s lawsuit only
because it had employed a consultant mentioned in the investigation, AL.com
reported. “We were never accused of doing anything wrong or inappropriate,”
said company marketing director Wendelyn Pekich.
Dec 16, 2017 decaturdaily.com
Alabama Department of Corrections’ choice for major contract sued in
Mississippi
MONTGOMERY — The company the Alabama Department of Corrections is
negotiating a contract with to handle its health care at 28 prisons was
sued this year by the Mississippi attorney general in connection with a
bribery scandal. ADOC said Thursday that Wexford Health Sources Inc. was
one of four companies that responded to the department’s request for
proposals earlier this year. “The RFP review committee conducted an
extensive examination of each company’s proposal and recommended ADOC to
proceed to contract negotiations with Wexford Health based on a combination
of quality of care and overall cost,” Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn
said in a news release sent late Thursday afternoon. Mississippi Attorney
General Jim Hood in February filed civil actions accusing 10 individuals and
12 out-of-state corporations of using alleged “consultants” as conduits to
pay bribes and kickbacks to then-Mississippi Department of Corrections
Commissioner Chris Epps for the awarding and retention of contracts, The
Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., reported. Epps was sentenced in May to
almost 20 years in prison and fined $100,000 for running one of the largest
and longest criminal conspiracies in the state's history. Hood said his
office was filing civil RICO lawsuits against all corporate and individual
conspirators connected to the prison bribery scandal involving Epps, The
Clarion-Ledger reported. Not all of those named as defendants in the
lawsuits were charged in the Epps case. Wexford Health later provided a
statement on the lawsuit: “… The attorney general’s action ensnared
numerous firms — including Wexford Health — who had nothing to do with
Epps’ activities, but were simply named because they had at one time
engaged consultants who were mentioned in the federal government’s
investigation of Epps. “… Throughout the federal government’s lengthy and
detailed Epps investigation, Wexford Health cooperated fully with the FBI
and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. We were never accused of doing anything
wrong or inappropriate. …” Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, said he’s heard in
recent days about the Mississippi lawsuit, but said the three other
companies competing for the contract “also had knocks against them.” He
said large companies that operate in multiple states are often sued.
“(Questions about Wexford) will be on top of the agenda when we meet next
month,” Ward said about the prison oversight committee he chairs. Because
the contract will be massive, “I’m encouraging the DOC to move slowly,”
Ward said. The new health care contract will go into effect April 1. The
potential value of the contract wasn’t available Thursday evening, but a
previous two-year contract with another company was worth $180 million. The
three-year contract will increase current health care staffing in
correctional facilities by about 25 percent for both medical and
mental-health care services, according to the news release. ADOC expects
the contract negotiations will take several weeks to complete and will
conclude by February. Wexford Health is headquartered in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, and works in more than a dozen states, according to ADOC.
Wexford's statement also said: “Wexford Health is proud to have left the
MSDOC health care system in far better shape than we received it from the
vendor who preceded us. … Similar to Alabama, when we started in
Mississippi, the agency was facing court supervision in the form of a
health care consent decree. That decree wa s
lifted during our tenure, in large part because of our partnership with the
MSDOC."
September 7, 2007 Birmingham News
The Legislative Contract Review Committee on Thursday delayed
implementation of a $223 million prison health-care contract after an
official with a company that bid $9 million less questioned the process.
The panel also delayed a $3.7 million Medicaid contract to computerize
medical records after lawmakers questioned the company's performance in
other states. The Contract Review Committee reviews state agency contracts.
Committee members can delay the contracts for 45 days but do not have the
power to cancel them. The Department of Corrections, after taking
proposals, selected Correctional Medical Services Inc. of St. Louis to
provide medical care to Alabama's more than 20,000 inmates. Another
company, Wexford Health Sources, had submitted the low bid that was about
$9 million cheaper than Correctional Medical Services'. Rep. Alvin Holmes,
D-Montgomery, and other legislators asked Corrections Commissioner Richard
Allen why the department had not selected the low bidder. Allen said
Correctional Medical Services scored slightly higher on bid reviews, which
take quality of care into account. "I don't know that Mr. Holmes would
go to the cheapest doctor in town," Allen said after the meeting.
Lawmakers also questioned that the prison staff who reviewed the bids
included several former employees of CMS. Allen said none had worked for
the company in at least six years. "I have full confidence in these
people. There was no politics involved in this selection," Allen said.
But Michael Davis, a lawyer representing Wexford, said company officials
wanted to meet with the commissioner before the contract was finalized.
Davis said company officials had questions about how bidders' scores were
determined.
September 5, 2007 Huntsville
Times
The state corrections commissioner was questioned by legislators
Wednesday over a $233.73 million contract for health care for Alabama's
nearly 26,000 inmates. Commissioner Richard Allen is seeking approval of a
three-year contract with St. Louis-based Correctional Medical Services Inc.
CMS would take over a contract now held by Prison Health Services Inc., of
Brentwood, Tenn. Sen. Parker Griffith, D-Huntsville, a retired physician,
endorsed the CMS contract, which would have two potential one-year renewals.
"I have a keen interest in (prisons), particularly the health
care," Griffith told the committee. "We're rapidly moving into
the baby boomers going through the prison system just like we're going
through it outside the prison system." Griffith said health care for
convicts is a "major, major cost factor" for the state, but he
added that "we're capping it with this contract and I think it's well
thought out." The committee has the power to delay the contract for 45
days but cannot stop it from being enacted. Some members of the Joint
Legislative Contract Review Committee questioned Allen about members of his
staff who formerly worked for the two private companies and were involved
in the selection process for CMS. A third company that submitted a proposal,
Pittsburgh-based Wexford Health Sources, was represented by an attorney who
said he will ask for an explanation of the grading process when the
committee meets again today. Allen acknowledged that Wexford's bid was
about $6 million lower than CMS. "We evaluated the contracts very
carefully," said Allen. "All the bidders were told that price
would be 40 percent of the score and other things - innovations, cost
savings, those types of things - would be scored 60 percent." Allen
said Wexford scored third. Rep. Blaine Galliher,
R-Gadsden, said he was concerned that Department of Corrections employees
who formerly worked for CMS and PHS were on the team that graded proposals
submitted by the three companies. But Allen defended the process, calling
prison health care "a very narrow specialty." "If you look
at the resumes of these (DOC) people, they have worked for several
companies, not just this company (CMS)," he said. "Nobody in our
department has worked for this company in the last six or seven years.
They've also worked for PHS. They've also worked for about a dozen other
companies. They go back and forth between the companies and state
service."
Arizona
Department of Corrections
Jan
9, 2014 azcentral.com
A
nurse working for Corizon Inc., the private health care provider for
Arizona’s Department of Corrections, improperly injected and exposed at
least 24 inmates to a “blood-born pathogen.” The company and the state have
declined to provide specific details about the incident. Corizon disclosed
Wednesday morning in a press release that one if its nurses on Sunday
evening was involved in “inproper procedures for
injections” for at least two dozen inmates at three units at the Arizona
State Prison Complex-Lewis in Buckeye. This is the second time in about 18
months that a private prison contractor has improperly injected inmates at
Buckeye. A nurse for Wexford Health Sources Inc., the prior health care
provider, caused a hepatitis C scare in August 2012 by contaminating the
prison's insulin supply. Susan Morgenstern, a Corizon spokeswoman, declined
to say why the company waited three days to notify the public. Doug Nick, a
Department of Corrections spokesman, also declined to answer questions
about the incident, referring questions to Corizon. “It’s a medical issue. They
are the doctors and nurses,” Nick said. “We are not aware of any
correctional officers at risk.” Blood-borne pathogens are infectious
microorganisms in human blood that can cause disease in humans. These
pathogens include, but are not limited to, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), according to the U.S. Occupational
Health & Safety Administration’s website. Corrections last year hired
Corizon after it agreed to terminate the medical-services contract to
provide health care for inmates statewide with Wexford. That decision came
amid accusations that Wexford improperly dispensed medicine to inmates and
wasted state resources. To replace Wexford, the state agreed to a more
expensive contract with Corizon of Brentwood, Tenn., to become the
health-care provider at all Arizona-run prisons. Corizon, the country's
largest provider of correctional medical care, took over March 4. Corizon,
like Wexford, has a history of problems providing health care in other
states. The three-year deal with Corizon cost taxpayers at least
$372million, but Corizon has the option to seek additional funds in the
final year. That contract is at least 6 percent higher than Wexford's $349
million, three-year deal.
February
01, 2013 Courthouse News
PHOENIX
(CN) - The Arizona Department of Corrections said it will replace its
for-profit prison health care company with another profit-seeking firm,
after a federal class action that claimed the state provides "grossly
inadequate" medical care to prisoners. Corizon Inc., of Brentwood,
Tenn., "will be responsible for the provision of health care to
inmates at the Arizona Department of Corrections' ('ADC') state-run
facilities" beginning March 4, according to a filing in the pending
court case. Corizon will replace Pittsburgh-based Wexford Health Sources.
The ACLU, which filed the class action nearly a year ago, was not
impressed. "Merely replacing one for-profit prison contractor with
another will only prolong the crisis in Arizona's prisons. There is no
reason to think that anything will change under Corizon Inc.," ACLU of
Arizona Legal Director Dan Pochoda said in a statement. The ACLU of Arizona
filed the class action with the Prison Law Office of Berkeley, Calif.,
attorneys with Perkins Coie of Phoenix and Jones
Day of San Francisco, and Jennifer Alewelt, with
the Arizona Center for Disability Law. According to the lawsuit: "For
years, the health care provided by defendants in Arizona's prisons has
fallen short of minimum constitutional requirements and failed to meet
prisoners' basic health needs." Named as defendants were Arizona
Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan and the state's Interim
Director of Health Services Richard Pratt. "Critically ill prisoners
have begged prison officials for treatment, only to be told 'be patient,'
'it's all in your head,' or 'pray' to be cured," the complaint stated.
"Despite warnings from their own employees, prisoners and their family
members, and advocates about the risk of serious injury and death to prisoners,
defendants are deliberately indifferent to the substantial risk of pain and
suffering to prisoners, including deaths, which occur due to defendants'
failure to provide minimally adequate health care, in violation of the
Eighth Amendment."
September 28, 2012
Arizona Republic
The Arizona Department of Corrections has levied a $10,000 fine against
Wexford Health Sources Inc., a new private medical-care provider for
inmates that is accused of improperly dispensing medicine and wasting state
resources. The DOC called on Wexford to fix staffing problems, properly
distribute and document medication for inmates, show a sense of urgency and
communicate better with the state when problems occur. Wexford was fined
over the actions of a nurse who caused a hepatitis C scare in August at the
Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis in Buckeye, and for failing to properly
report the problem to authorities. Corrections Director Charles Ryan in a
statement said the state's demands, called a cure notification, give the
state and Wexford an opportunity to "improve communications and ensure
the health care needs of the inmates incarcerated by the State of Arizona
are being met." Ryan was not available to answer questions. Bill
Lamoreaux, a DOC spokesman, declined to answer specific questions about the
matter. Wexford was hired after the Republican-controlled Arizona
Legislature pushed to privatize inmate health care to save money. The DOC
in strongly worded letters to Wexford alleges the company forced the state
to use public employees to fix its deficiencies. The amount of wasted tax
dollars was not disclosed. Arizona houses close to 40,000 inmates.
Lamoreaux declined to answer if taxpayers were still saving money with
Wexford's services.
September 4, 2012 Arizona
Republic
A nurse for the new medical provider for Arizona prisons may have exposed
103 inmates at the Buckeye state prison to hepatitis C by contaminating the
prison's insulin supply, and state and local health officials were not
alerted for more than a week. Officials with the state and Maricopa County
health departments, who confirmed to The Arizona Republic on Tuesday that
they had not been informed by Wexford Health Sources Inc. of the problem,
said they will launch investigations into the incident. Official
notification of the Aug. 27 error only came late Tuesday afternoon, hours
after an inmate's family member had told 12 News of the potential health
risk. State rules require health-care providers and correctional facilities
to notify health departments within five business days of a hepatitis C
diagnosis, treatment or detection. Wexford said it suspended the nurse on
Aug. 27, immediately after learning the person "had violated basic
infection-control protocols while administering medication that day."
"In talking with the Department of Health Services, they believe it
should have been reported first to the county," Corrections Director
Charles Ryan said late Tuesday. "That is a question we will have of
Wexford -- as to the lack of notification or an explanation as to why that
did not occur. "The department has concerns about this issue, and we
will be having further discussions with Wexford in terms of this
requirement and some other issues as well." Ryan said the incident
occurred when a diabetic inmate who also has hepatitis C was administered a
routine dose of insulin by the nurse on Aug. 27. The needle used on that
inmate was inserted into another vial to draw more insulin for the same
inmate. Ryan said the contaminated needle was inserted into a vial which
was then put back among other vials in the prison's medication
refrigerator. It got mixed up with other vials used throughout that day to
administer insulin injections to more than 100 other diabetic inmates.
Later that day, Ryan said, officials realized that the vial that potentially
had been tainted with hepatitis C may have been used to dose other inmates.
At that point, the nurse in question was suspended and prison officials
sought to determine how many inmates may have been exposed. All the vials
of medicine were destroyed after the discovery. Wexford spokesman Larry
Pike on Tuesday minimized the potential exposure of other inmates. He said
that the company acted "expeditiously" to identify those who were
potentially affected and that the company believes the potential for their
exposure was small. Though corrections officials and Wexford declined to
name the nurse, the Arizona State Board of Nursing identified her as Nwadiuto Jane Nwaohia. She
has been under state investigation since June 2012 for unsafe practice or
substandard care, but the board would not provide additional information on
the nature of the previous problem. Corrections officials first
acknowledged the matter Tuesday morning after 12 News asked about the
incident at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis, which houses 5,382
inmates in minimum- to maximum-security facilities. Hepatitis C is the
leading cause of liver transplants and causes liver cancer. Seventy-five to
85 percent of people with hepatitis C develop a chronic infection,
according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Shoana Anderson, head of the state Office of Infectious
Disease Services, said one of the biggest dangers for those infected with
hepatitis C is "it sits in the liver quietly, and 20 years later, a
person can develop severe liver disease." Anderson and Jeanene Fowler,
a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Department of Public Health, said
Wexford should have notified them of the issue. "It's extremely
disturbing that something like this could happen. It calls for a thorough
investigation to determine all of the surrounding causes of the mistake or
the negligence," said Don Specter of the Prison Law Office, a prison
watchdog group based in Berkeley, Calif. Ken Kopczynski, executive director
of the Private Corrections Working Group in Tallahassee, Fla., called the
incident "scary" and said it shows a lack of oversight by
corrections officials. "This is a problem with privatization,"
Kopczynski said. "They are just accepting who Wexford will hire."
Wexford, which has previously lost contracts for poor service in other
jurisdictions, this spring won a $349 million, three-year contract to
provide health care for Arizona inmates. The company began providing
services for nearly 40,000 Arizona inmates on July 1. In a written
statement, the Pittsburgh-based company said it suspended the nurse
immediately upon learning she "may have compromised a vial of
medication by placing it in contact with a previously used syringe."
Wexford, in its statement, said a local staffing agency assigned the nurse
to the prison complex. The company said that at no time was the same
syringe and needle used on more than one patient and that no staff members
were exposed. Wexford said it reported the nurse to the state nursing board
for investigation, but that did not occur until late Tuesday afternoon,
after the news had been reported. The company also banned the nurse from
working under any of its contracts in the future. Wexford provides
health-care services nationwide to roughly 124,000 inmates and other
residents at more than 100 institutions. The state said inmates exposed
were notified and are being screened for infectious diseases. An
independent laboratory under contract with Wexford will provide continuing
medical monitoring and testing of the potentially exposed inmates over the
next several months, the state said. All patients will be informed of their
results, though Ryan noted that some inmates may previously have been
exposed to hepatitis C.
May 12, 2012 KPHO
It's supposed to save taxpayers money and reduce the likelihood of
lawsuits. However, there is growing concern that when a private company
takes over the inmate health care program for Arizona's Department of
Corrections this summer, there could be a new set of problems. The Corrections
Department is already under fire for how it treats inmates, based on an
ongoing lawsuit that accuses the state of widespread abuse and mistreatment
of thousands of inmates. The lawsuit calls the current prison health system
"grossly inadequate." The Corrections Department is about to a
change, bringing in an out-of state company to privatize health care for
prison inmates. Daniel Pochoda is legal director of the ACLU of Phoenix one
of the groups that filed the complaint against the state. He's told CBS 5
News that the company coming in, Wexford Health, will do nothing to improve
the treatment of inmates, and actually cost taxpayers more money.
"It's profit motive when you talk about private companies,"
Pochoda said. "The bottom line is making a buck and if that means
reducing their costs and not having sufficient number of doctors or
specialists, it occurs all too frequently. CBS 5 News checked into Wexford
Health and found a number of past problems. In 2009, Clark County, NV,
declined to renew a contract with Wexford at its county jail after
complaints that Wexford wasn't dispensing medication to inmates in a timely
fashion. In 2007, New Mexico terminated a statewide contract after an audit
found shortages of physicians and dentists. Wexford was also tied to a
payoff scandal in Illinois, where the state director of corrections, Donald
Snyder, served two years in federal prison after accepting a $30,000 bribe
from a Wexford lobbyist. No Wexford officials were charged in the case.
Broward
County Detention Center, Ft.
Lauderdale, Florida
December 10, 2004 Sun-Sentinel
A new health management firm has taken over the care of the 5,200 inmates
in Broward County's jail system after a dispute between the Sheriff's
Office and the previous contractor over medical costs. Armor Correctional Health Services began
work last week under its five-year, $127 million contract even though it
did not yet have a license to dispense medicine. Armor replaced Wexford
Health Sources, which first pushed for more money and then suggested
cutting services despite the opening of a new detention center in the past
year. The Sheriff's Office chose Armor over Wexford and two other firms
that bid on the contract even though the Armor had only recently been
incorporated. The company's chief executive officer is Doyle Moore, who
previously founded Prison Health Services -- a longtime player in
correctional health care in South Florida. Col. James Wimberly, who runs
the jail system for Jenne, said the Sheriff's
Office decided to put the contract out for bid after Wexford suggested a 12
percent increase in what it was paid. In the bidding process, Wexford's
proposal was $300,000 less than that of Armor but would have cut eight
positions from the jail system's medical staff.
Clark County Jail, Clark County, Washington
December 17, 2009 The Skanner News
In the wake of a required 60-day background investigation by local
officials, the racial discrimination tort claim by three law enforcement
employees against Clark County Corrections has expanded into a full-on
lawsuit seeking millions in damages. The lawsuit, detailing more than a
dozen instances of racist harassment that allegedly took place throughout
the past 20 years, has been brought against the county by former Clark
County Sheriffs Department Commander Clifford B.
Evelyn, 58; former corrections officer Britt Easterly, 39, now with the
U.S. Secret Service in Washington D.C.; and Elzy P. Edwards, 46, an
unsuccessful applicant for Clark County Corrections who is now working with
the Washington Department of Corrections. Evelyn is seeking $1 million,
while Easterly and Edwards are asking $500,000 each in damages. A 20-year
veteran of the corrections department who had recently been honored for his
efforts to promote diversity in its ranks, Evelyn was fired in June after
an Internal Affairs investigation found he had violated general orders
regarding “harassment,” “courtesy” and “competency.” In the joint lawsuit
against Clark County, Edwards, who unsuccessfully applied for a job at
Clark County Corrections, alleges that the hiring process was unfair;
Easterly, as well as Evelyn, allege they were subjected to a long-standing
atmosphere of racist incidents and comments. Evelyn also alleges unfair
treatment at the hands of Clark County Corrections Chief Jail Deputy
Sheriff Jackie Batties, as well as management and
staff of Wexford Health Solutions, the company contracted to provide health
care services at the jail. Documents obtained by The Skanner News show that
a former Wexford employee, who has since been convicted of stealing cash
from a co-worker’s purse, filed a complaint against Evelyn this year that
kicked off a chain of events resulting in his firing. Evelyn had for the
past two years reported on Wexford Health Sources’ failure to meet the
terms of their operations contract, including submitting a detailed report
in writing delivered to his supervisors at Clark County more than a year
before the county’s own performance audit confirmed his allegations.
Elsewhere around the nation, in July of this year million-dollar lawsuits
were filed against Wexford corporation and New Mexico state corrections
officials by incarcerated men and women alleging similar problems – even
deaths -- at Wexford-managed health programs in the state’s prison system.
Also in New Mexico, a Black dentist won a racial discrimination case
against Wexford in November of 2008 when the company was found guilty by a
federal jury of paying him a smaller wage on the basis of his race. Clark
County contracted with Pennsylvania-based Wexford Health Solutions in 2006
after problems cropped up with their former jailhouse health care provider,
Prison Health Services. Clark County officials signed a three-year, $9
million contract with Wexford set to expire in 2010. Its May, 2009 report,
prepared by the Institute for Law and Policy Planning, was intended as a
performance audit. Several documents obtained by The Skanner News show that
reports Evelyn had filed with superiors in 2008 about Wexford’s failure to
meet the demands of its contract were validated by Clark County’s
performance audit. In a series of memos to his superiors dated before the
release of Clark County’s own report on Wexford’s performance this past
June, Evelyn had outlined specific examples of the corporation’s failure to
follow the terms of its contract with Clark County, from lack of a written
operations manual to untrained staff, lack of medical supplies onsite and a
tendency to “short” the jails’ medical services that forced Clark County to
pay out more in resources to cover the gaps. The chief finding of Clark
County’s own investigation into Wexford was that “the company has
systematically failed to comply with the many complex undertakings included
in its contract with the county.” Evelyn, Easterly and Edwards were
unavailable for comment at press time. Clark County officials are declining
media requests while the legal case is pending.
October 16, 2009 The Skanner News
Former Clark County Sheriff's Department Commander Clifford B. Evelyn,
fired from his job in June of this year, had repeatedly detailed
shortcomings by Wexford Health Sources in fulfilling the terms of their
contract to provide health care to county inmates more than a year before
the county’s own performance audit did, records obtained by The Skanner
News show. Evelyn, an award-winning 20-year veteran of the Clark County
corrections department, is one of a trio of men who last month filed racial
discrimination tort claims against the Clark County Sheriffs
department. Evelyn, who is seeking a $1 million judgment, was fired after
an Internal Affairs investigation found he had violated general orders
regarding “harassment,” “courtesy” and “competency.” Race and Law
Enforcement -- Evelyn declined to speak to the press before a ruling on his
tort claim, which alleges incidents of racial harassment from his
co-workers, trainers and superiors in Clark County corrections dating back
to 1989. In addition to Evelyn, tort claims for $500,000 each have been
filed against Clark County by former corrections officer Britt Easterly,
now with the U.S. Secret Service in Washington D.C, and Elzy P. Edwards, an
unsuccessful applicant for Clark County corrections who is now working with
the Washington Department of Corrections. All three are represented by
Portland attorney Thomas S. Boothe. In September of 2008 the City of
Vancouver settled for $1.65 million with former Vancouver Police Officer Navin Sharma, a native of India and eight-year veteran
of the bureau. Sharma brought a racial discrimination case after being
fired for allegedly making errors and “using repetitive language” in his
DUI reports. He had previously won a 2000 racial discrimination complaint
from the city for $287,000. Evelyn, Easterly and Edwards’s tort filing
triggers a 60-day investigation into the claims by the county, and may be
followed by a lawsuit. Report Backs Up Whistleblower -- Clark County
contracted with Pennsylvania-based Wexford Health Solutions in 2006 after
problems cropped up with their former jailhouse health care provider,
Prison Health Services. Clark County officials signed a three-year, $9
million contract with Wexford set to expire in 2010. the county’s May, 2009 report, prepared by the Institute for Law and
Policy Planning, was intended as a performance audit. Several documents
obtained by The Skanner News show that memos Evelyn had filed with
superiors in 2008 about Wexford’s failure to meet the demands of its
contract were later validated by Clark County’s audit. In a series of memos
to his superiors dated before the public release of Clark County’s own
report on Wexford’s performance this past June, Evelyn outlined specific
examples of the corporation’s failure to follow the terms of its contract
with Clark County, They range from lack of a written operations manual, to
consistent deployment of untrained staff, lack of medical supplies onsite
and a tendency to “short” the jails’ medical services that forced Clark
County to pay out more in resources to cover the gaps. “In February 2007
Clark County awarded the inmate health contract to Wexford Health Source,
Inc.,” Evelyn wrote in a July, 2008, memo to Gene Pearce, Clark County
deputy prosecuting attorney. “Since that time there have been numerous
issue(s) whereas Wexford has not met the terms of the contract and in many
cases violated contractual terms leading to concerns surrounding liability
for the Sheriff’s office.” The chief finding of Clark County’s
investigation into Wexford was that “the company has systematically failed
to comply with the many complex undertakings included in its contract with
the county.” Consistent Problems -- The issues raised by Evelyn, as well as
the county’s report, are echoed in recent lawsuits against Wexler filed
this past summer in New Mexico. Evelyn’s laundry list of Wexford’s contract
violations included the lack of any operating manual or written procedures;
inadequate staffing and medical supplies; inadequate training and oversight
for medical employees; delays in providing medicine and services to
chronically-ill inmates; promotion of workers into positions where they
were not properly licensed, and even a refusal by some mental health
counselors to provide services to inmates they “didn’t like.” Clark
County’s investigation singled out the lack of a policies and procedures
manual; lack of a staff management improvement program that Wexford had
pledged to institute as part of its initial bid for the contract; staffing,
management and communication failures; inadequate staffing levels; lack of
training; problems with licenses and credentials; inadequate medical
records and obstacles in pharmacy arrangements between Wexford and the
corrections staff. Meanwhile, the Albuquerque Journal newspaper reported on
July 17 of this year that a Wexford doctor, as well as state corrections
officials, are being sued for medical malpractice in the case of a prisoner
denied adequate treatment. The newspaper has also reported on numerous
other charges that have been filed in New Mexico alleging sexual assault by
a Wexford mental health counselor. The lawsuit and charges followed a 2007
performance audit that faulted Wexford’s operations in the Southwestern
state.
Florida Department of Corrections
Apr
21, 2017 news4jax.com
Corrections agency scraps prison health contract
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Citing shortcomings in mental-health services at a
South Florida prison, state corrections officials are terminating a
contract with a private health-care provider months before the deal was set
to expire. Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones on Wednesday
canceled the contract with Wexford Health Sources, giving the
Pittsburgh-based company a required 180-day notice of termination. The
cancellation notice means that Wexford will have to pull out of Florida
prisons before its contract was set to expire in December. Jones cited a
scathing review this month from the Correctional Medical Authority about
"the apparent lack of psychotropic medications prescribed and
administered" to most of the patients receiving mental health services
at a Doral facility. The report, sent to Jones this week, included examples
of inmates' medications being cut off and inmates getting put in restraints
instead of being treated with medications. At the time of the correctional
authority's survey over a two-day period this month, only one of 37 inmates
was prescribed psychiatric medications, according to the report.
"Although, not all inmates may meet the criteria to be placed on
medications, the clinical justification for discontinuation was not always
present in the medical record and often occurred without consideration of
titration or possible withdrawal symptoms. Furthermore, there was no
evidence in the records reviewed, that medications were considered when the
inmate's mental status continued to decline," the report found. But in
an email to The News Service of Florida, Wexford took "strong
exception" to the findings and accused Jones of not allowing the
company to respond to the allegations before terminating the contract.
"We treat every patient under our care with respect and dignity, and
with the full hope that we can help restore them to mental health. Isolated
cases involving inmates with histories of mental problems would not appear
to be the basis for termination of an entire contract," Wexford
spokeswoman Wendelyn Pekich
said in an email. But the report draws attention to the types of cases that
have earned the department a black eye after reports of inmate abuse at the
hands of prison guards and of corrections' officers lack of training in how
to handle mentally ill prisoners. For example, the report documented the
case of one inmate whose medications were discontinued after he was
processed into the prison. After entering the facility, the inmate's
"behavior escalated, as evidenced by smearing feces, multiple
self-inflicted lacerations to his arm, as well as banging, threatening, and
continuing to cut himself," according to the report sent to Jones. The
behavior "continued for hours" until a clinician was notified,
according to the report. The patient was placed in restraints, but "there
was no documentation that emergency medications were considered," the
evaluators reported. "Secretary Jones is absolutely outraged at
Wexford's lack of performance and delivery of services" described in
the report, the department said in a statement Thursday. "The department
has been committed to meaningful health care reforms and takes the issues
detailed in the CMA's notification extremely seriously. Following this
medical emergency notification, the department immediately deployed a
mental health ombudsman and behavioral health risk management team to
review all inmate mental health needs handled by Wexford at South Florida
Reception Center." Wexford objected that, while privacy laws
restricted the company's ability to respond to the specific examples cited
in the report, "there was nothing in the treatment of these inmates
that should, or could, justify contract termination based on medical
considerations alone," Pekich said. "It
is extremely disappointing that the department acted without consulting
with our psychiatric providers regarding the affected inmates, in order to
determine why our personnel, relying on their professional judgment,
pursued the chosen course of treatment. Instead, the department relied on
CMA's non-psychiatric auditors, who --- without being licensed
psychiatrists --- told the department how they thought these patients
should have been treated. These allegations led
to the declaration of an emergency situation," Pekich
said. Jones move to sever ties with Wexford came after after
Corizon Health in late 2015 notified the state that it was walking away
from a five-year, $1.2 billion deal three years early. The Tennessee-based
company claimed it was losing money on its contract with the state. Corizon
managed health care for about three-fourths of the state's 100,000 inmates,
while Wexford --- lauded by prison officials until recently for its
performance --- handles about 18,000 prisoners in the southern portion of
the state. Jones came under fire for signing a no-bid, $268 million
contract with Centurion of Florida LLC in January 2016 to take over for
Corizon. Wexford's contract with the state was unaffected by the Centurion
deal. Jones decided to redo the health care services contracts in 2015, and
issued an invitation to negotiate for select companies to submit proposals.
Wexford and Centurion are two of the three companies vying for the
contracts, which Jones has broken up into pieces, including mental health
services. Wexford, Centurion and Correct Care Solutions are all in the
running to deliver mental health services to the state's prison system.
Centurion and Wexford are also vying to provide medical services, according
to the corrections department. The cancellation of Wexford's contract is
the latest twist in a drawn-out controversy over health care for Florida
prisoners. Earlier this month, the state and Corizon agreed to pay about
$2.1 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by inmates who claimed
the state agency and the company denied hernia operations to save money.
The embattled corrections agency has been under scrutiny for several years
in the wake of reports of inmate deaths at the hands of prison guards,
cover-ups regarding inmate deaths and allegations of retaliation against
whistleblowers. Appearing before lawmakers, Jones has stressed the need to
beef up mental health services for inmates, citing treatment issues as a
safety concern for prison guards as well as inmates.
Apr
16, 2016 tallahassee.com
Judge drops challenge to prison contract
An administrative law judge tossed out a challenge filed by a prison
health-care company over the Florida Department of Corrections’ contract
with a rival firm, which wasn’t competitively bid. Wexford Health Sources,
which provides inmate health care in South Florida, filed a formal protest
in February, after DOC contracted with Centurion of Florida to provide care
to inmates in North and Central Florida. The agency brought Centurion on
board to replace Corizon Health Care, which is ending its contract early,
at the end of May. The Centurion contract prompted criticism from lawmakers
and Florida TaxWatch. The “cost-plus” deal will
pay the company for its actual costs, along with 13.5 percent of its costs
to cover administrative overhead and profit, which critics said would drive
up costs. Under the contract, Centurion will be paid a maximum of $267.9
million a year. DOC has said it awarded the contract to Centurion because
it represented the best value to the state and that prices offered by
Wexford and another company were millions higher than Centurion’s. The
agency also argued it did not have to follow a competitive process because
the contract involved health services, which are exempt under statutes.
Administrative Law Judge R. Bruce McKibben agreed with the agency. In an
order issued last week, he cited cases affirming the principle that
contracts awarded under the statutory exemption can’t be challenged in
administrative court by a third party.“Wexford’s argument, though not
without merit, is a matter for resolution by the Legislature,” McKibben
wrote.
Mar 26, 2016 flcourier.com
DOC, Wexford battling over prison health contract
A prison health-care company is asking a judge to allow it to pursue a
challenge to the Florida Department of Corrections’ (DOC) decision in
January to award a contract to another firm to provide health services at
the majority of the state’s prisons. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., filed a
document last week in the state Division of Administrative Hearings arguing
that it should be able to continue a formal protest
against the department’s award of a $268 million contract to
Centurion of Florida, LLC. The department signed the contract with
Centurion in January, after another firm, Corizon Health, decided to end
its contract to provide services to about three-fourths of the state’s
inmates. Wexford, which serves inmates in other parts of the state, filed a
protest against the department’s decision to award the contract to
Centurion. But the department filed a motion March 2 arguing, in part, that
the “contract with Centurion was authorized by statute,” and that
Administrative Law Judge R. Bruce McKibben should “relinquish jurisdiction”
in Wexford’s protest, a move that effectively would end it. Wexford,
however, fired back by arguing that it has grounds to protest the contract
award and that the case ultimately should move forward. “The subject of
this proceeding is whether the DOC acted properly and legally when it
entered into a no-bid contract for the provision of health services in
certain regions of the state prison system for inmates in the custody of
the DOC,’’ the Wexford document said.
Feb
22, 2015 tampabay.com
TALLAHASSEE — Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones announced
Friday that she intends to rebid contracts worth about $1.4 billion with
private companies to provide health care services to the state's 100,000
inmates. Jones's announcement came amid increased scrutiny of Florida's
prison system, the third-largest in the country, after reports of guards
abusing inmates, a rising number of unexplained inmate deaths and lawsuits
from investigators who claim they were retaliated against after exposing
wrongdoing. Lawmakers have recently focused on problems with medical
services provided to inmates by Wexford Health Sources and Corizon Health.
The for-profit companies took over prison health care nearly two years ago
after a drawn-out court battle over outsourcing ordered by the Legislature
in 2011. Jones has been highly critical of the state's current five-year
deals with the companies and began exploring ways to rebid or cancel the
contracts shortly after taking over as head of the department last month.
Under the current agreements, Wexford is being paid $48 million a year
until Dec. 20, 2017, to provide health services to about 15,000 inmates at
nine prisons in South Florida. Corizon, which provides health care to more
than 74,000 inmates in North and Central Florida as well as part of South
Florida, receives $229 million per year. The Corizon contract was set to
expire on June 30, 2018. Rebidding the contracts is expected to drive up
costs because the department will want more services. "We are
anticipating a cost increase. But we're also adding electronic health records,
liquidated damages and other enhancements to the contract that will help us
in the delivery of health care services," department spokesman
McKinley Lewis said. Senate Criminal Justice Chairman Greg Evers ordered
Jones to redo the current contracts after he visited several prisons in his
Panhandle district and found they were understaffed by doctors and nurses,
a common complaint in other states where Tennessee-based Corizon does
business. Staffing was one of a variety of issues Jones outlined in a news
release Friday announcing her intention to open a contracting process known
as an invitation to negotiate "prior to the beginning of 2016."
Jones is seeking "enhanced elements" to the current contracts
that will include "the ability to ensure that appropriate staffing is
provided by our contractors that enables a proper mix of administrative and
institutional-level direct care, the presence of medical staff who possess
the proper skills and qualifications to provide quality care to our inmate
population and clinical oversight and supervision." Jones wants the
contractors to perform internal audits of staffing levels, which will also
be monitored by the state Correctional Medical Authority and the
department's health-services staff. She also intends to demand higher
penalties for the companies if they fail to meet minimum staffing or
standard-of-care levels. In addition, the secretary is asking companies to
use electronic health records "to support decision making and improve
provision of comprehensive medical, dental and mental health services while
ensuring continuity of care," she said. Last year, 346 of the state's
100,000-plus inmates died behind bars. More than half of those deaths — 176
— were initially unclassified, meaning state investigators had no immediate
explanation for the causes of death. According to the Department of
Corrections website, 146 inmates died due to heart attacks, cancer,
gastrointestinal diseases or other medical problems. "I am confident
in the ability of this department to meet the health care needs of our
inmate population through a partnership with private health care providers.
Through this procurement process, the department will take steps toward
being better able to ensure that the health care services required to be delivered
to our inmate population are done so in a professional, expeditious and
quality fashion," Jones said in the news release. Evers was cautiously
optimistic about Jones's announcement. "In the past year since the
Florida correctional health care has become fully privatized, inmates'
deaths have increased a staggering 10 percent. I'm encouraged to see that
FDOC is responding to this health care crisis in our health care system.
It's been a terrible deal for the Florida taxpayers. Floridians deserve better,"
Evers, R-Baker, said. "It is my hope and expectation that this time
FDOC will rebid these contracts in an open and transparent process that
includes proper accountability and oversight. We will be watching this
process very closely to make sure that FDOC is not giving us whipped cream
and telling us it's ice cream." Both companies have pledged to
continue to provide services throughout the rebidding process. "We are
pleased to see Secretary Jones doing exactly what she promised to do when
she took over leadership of the Department of Corrections — making whatever
changes are necessary to ensure the best outcomes for the state, its
taxpayers, and its inmate population. This new procurement process will
allow additional flexibility and increased cooperation between the state of
Florida and its partners, and we believe we are well-positioned to continue
as the state's principal correctional health provider," Corizon Health
Chief Executive Officer Woodrow Myers, Jr., said in a statement issued
Friday. Corizon, which employs 1,700 workers in Florida, is also
"proud of the improvements we've made in recent months, for instance
enhancing reporting on healthcare metrics and adding more staff at no
additional cost to the state," Myers wrote. Wexford President Dan Conn
said in a statement that his Pittsburgh-based company is committed to
working with Jones. "We are confident Wexford Health has been meeting
the many requirements of our contract with the State of Florida and know
the overwhelming majority of concerns expressed by the secretary and
legislators don't apply to the inmates under our care in Florida,"
Conn wrote. "The opportunity to rebid the contract will give us a
chance to take Florida prison health care to the next level and implement
additional cost-saving clinical programs not possible under the current
contract, such as discounted drug pricing programs and electronic health
records. Wexford Health looks forward to continuing our partnership with
the Department of Corrections now and into the future." The rebidding
of the contracts is the latest turn in Florida's decades-long struggle with
inmate health care. In the mid 1970s, lawyers launched a a nearly 20-year court battle, known as Costello v.
Wainwright, over prisoners' health care, resulting in the appointment of a
special master and nearly a decade of federal-court oversight of health
services in the Department of Corrections. The Correctional Medical
Authority was created in 1986 as part of the settlement in the Costello
case. The state's prison health system stayed under federal oversight until
1993, when a judge decided that the federal government could relinquish its
role as long as Florida remained committed to using monitors, like the
authority, to ensure that prisoners' rights were not being violated. In the
midst of deciding to privatize prison health care in 2011, lawmakers
effectively shuttered the authority by eliminating its $717,000 budget.
That same year, Gov. Rick Scott vetoed a measure that would have eliminated
the agency altogether, calling it a "valuable layer of
oversight." The next year, House and Senate leaders allocated $580,000
to revive the agency, shrunk from 12 workers to six with an oversight board
of seven governor-appointed members. Critics of the revived authority say
the agency no longer has the power it held when U.S. District Judge Susan
Black agreed to end federal oversight. Disappointment in the current
health-care contracts began not long after the privatization was fully
implemented in late 2013. Less than four months before Scott, who pushed
for the privatization, was re-elected last year, former Corrections
Secretary Michael Crews quietly agreed to pay Wexford and Corizon another
$3.2 million to stay on the job for another year. Two months after he inked
the contract amendments, Crews threatened to stop payments to Corizon,
saying the company failed to follow through after audits revealed
shortcomings in multiple areas, including medical care, nursing and
staffing. The threat of another Costello-like class action lawsuit and
federal oversight is an additional incentive for lawmakers to try to
rectify prison health-care issues, which one lawyer who represented the
inmates said are worse now than when the case was settled. "Once those
bids come in, if the private health care providers can't do it at a cost we
can afford, then it may be cheaper because of the inadequate health care
the inmates are receiving. The state may have to look at taking it back
over," Evers said.
July
25, 2013 cjr.org
MIAMI
— With Florida embarking on an ambitious effort to privatize much of the
state’s prison healthcare—the largest such undertaking in the nation—the
time is ripe for journalists to take a deeper look into the history of such
programs, and the companies getting massive contracts for taxpayer dollars.
Newspapers in Florida have nibbled around the edges of this complex story,
and problems with privatization efforts in prisons have been investigated
periodically by news outlets around the country. (There are also, of
course, plenty of problems with publicly-administered jails and
prisons—more on that to come). Yet despite problematic records in other
states, and even in Florida, the two companies privatizing healthcare at
Florida prisons—Corizon Inc. and Wexford Health Sources—have received
little recent scrutiny here. The Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald statehouse
bureau has written about the court fight to stop the privatization, which
state workers ultimately lost in June. The Times/Herald team has also noted
that Corizon, the company that is about to take over healthcare at every
Florida prison north of Palm Beach, to the tune of $230 million, has faced
problems with contracts “from Maine to Idaho.” But these companies can be
hard to track. Corizon was created in 2011 with the merger of Prison Health
Services and Correctional Medical Services, companies that have had their
own issues in the past. For example, Prison Health Services had to pay $5
million in fines and restitution in 2004 to resolve a Florida Medicaid
fraud case, and has periodically lost contracts around the country because
of concerns about cost overruns or problems with service. Correctional
Medical Services has had its own difficulties in other states, and even in
Florida. It has lost or walked away from contracts as close to home for
Florida reporters as Palm Beach County. The for-profit prison healthcare
industry is hard to penetrate, with tangled relationships and complex
histories. A year before Palm Beach County dumped CMS in favor of a local
company, Armor Correctional Health Services, Broward County dumped another
company, Wexford Health Sources, in favor of Armor (which also has a
contract with Hillsborough County jails). Armor was founded by the founder
of Prison Health Services, and is “politically connected,” according to a
story this month by The Tampa Bay Times that looked at the challenges and
high costs of jail healthcare. Wexford hasn’t been written about as much in
Florida, though it recently took over health services at nine state prisons
in South Florida with, as the Tampa Bay Times wrote, “a five-year contract
starting at $48 million a year.” But it has faced issues in other states.
Corizon replaced Wexford in Arizona earlier this year, less than a year
into Wexford’s conract, after Wexford was fined
by the state and drew a class action lawsuit by the ACLU alleging “grossly
inadequate medical care.” Corizon has seen a dramatic uptick in lawsuits
filed against it, but those numbers may only reflect the dramatic increase
in contracts Corizon has gotten recently. A deeper look is warranted.
Wexford, too, appears to be seeing an increase in lawsuits, though its name
is not as unique, and easily searchable, as Corizon’s. Again, there’s an
opportunity there for an enterprising reporter to dig into the data.
For-profit health companies serving prisons and jails aren’t the only piece
of this puzzle that is ripe for investigation. Private companies running
entire facilities have also come under scrutiny by reporters, prisoner
advocates, and the Department of Justice. Last month the Atlanta Journal
Constitution noted that a company running a juvenile lock-up in Georgia was
singled out by a Justice Department survey that found it had the highest
percentage in the country of sexual contact between the children and
staffers— with 32 percent of inmates reporting such contact. The AJC noted
the company, Youth Services International, has had problems in every state
where it has a contract.
January 4, 2013
TCPalm.com
MARTIN COUNTY — Healthcare employees at two areas prisons will be laid off
in the next three months as part of a privatization plan, the Department of
Corrections announced Friday. All of those who will be let go, however,
will be able to interview to get their old jobs back under the new
management, said Ann Howard, corrections spokeswoman. The outsourcing,
which will happen at correctional institutions in Martin County, Okeechobee
County and seven other South Florida prisons, could save the state $1
million monthly. The Corrections Department will lay off 36 healthcare
employees at the Martin Correctional Institution in Indiantown and 24 at
the Okeechobee Correctional Institution in Okeechobee. Overall, termination
notices were handed to 400 employees at the nine facilities this week, Howard
said. All will have the opportunity to interview with Pittsburgh-based
Wexford Health Sources, with which the state signed a five-year, $48
million annual contract to handle infirmaries at the prisons. Howard said
Wexford is expected to hire the amount of employees as will be let go at
the nine prisons. In other privatization deals done by Wexford, the company
rehired about 90 percent of the former staff, Howard said. Corrections
officials have used privatization for various other services at its facilities,
she said. The South Florida prisons were covered by a budget provision
calling for privatization of their health services. The other affected
prisons are in Hardee, DeSoto, Charlotte and Miami-Dade counties. A judge
blocked plans to outsource health care at other prisons because they were
not included in the budget provision. The department is appealing. State
officials have looked to other cost-cutting measures in recent years for
the prison system. Last year, corrections officials closed the Indian River
Correctional Institution in Vero Beach, as well as six other prisons and
four work camps. The move was expected to save about $90 million during a
two-year period. The Indian River closing laid off 155 employees.
July 17, 2012 Tampa Times
The Florida Department of Corrections said Tuesday it will move ahead with
plans to privatize all health care for the nation's third-largest prison
system, even after a stalemate in court and the expiration of legislative
budget language that authorized the sweeping change. Corrections Secretary
Ken Tucker issued a late-afternoon statement calling the decision
"best for the Department and taxpayers." "This step will
allow us to provide the same services we currently have which meet state
and federal standards, while saving money for the taxpayers." The
action could trigger a new round of litigation by a labor union that
represents nurses who work in the system. The Legislature last year ordered
the agency to privatize all health care as a money-saving move, by inserting
budget language known as proviso and requiring a savings of at least 7
percent over 2010 costs. In April, Tucker announced a decision to
tentatively award contracts to Corizon Health in most of the state and
Wexford Health Sources in South Florida. Two unions filed a lawsuit. A
state judge in Tallahassee did not rule in the case before the fiscal year
ended on June 30, and the proposal also required approval by the
Legislative Budget Commission, which never took action on it. Florida has
more than 100,000 inmates in its prisons. This would be the most extensive
single privatization venture ever undertaken by a state prison system in
the U.S. Attorneys for the state contend that privatization can be done by
the agency without a legislative mandate. "Change isn't easy, and we
know sometimes it can be unsettling," Tucker said. "However, the
hard work of our employees is greatly appreciated and recognized."
May 25, 2012 The
Florida Current
In the coming weeks, Tallahassee judges will hear arguments in two court
cases that will test the limits of lawmakers' power to order outsourcing in
the state budget. The first of those, which challenges the Department of
Corrections' effort to privatize health care in the state's prison system,
will come before Leon County Circuit Judge Kevin Carroll on Tuesday. In a
case that could affect the future of thousands of state worker jobs and
almost $300 million in contracts, the Florida Nurses Association is arguing
the Legislature did not have the authority to order the department to
privatize inmate health care without passing a standalone bill. The lawsuit
builds in part on Judge Jackie Fulford's ruling this fall, which blocked
the privatization of state prisons in 18 South Florida counties because
lawmakers ordered the move in budget language, and Fulford found the
procedure conflicted with existing state law. That case will be heard in
late June by the 1st District Court of Appeal. The state and the two
companies in line to receive health care contracts are arguing the department
has the authority to issue the contracts. Court papers filed by Wexford
Health Sources say the nurses association is building its arguments on an
"erroneous conclusion based on a superficial reading of Judge
Fulford's ruling." State law requires prison officials to develop a
"business case" that shows the outsourcing will save at least 7
percent, and for the Legislature to provide a specific item in the budget
for the private prisons. Those requirements apply specifically to contracts
for the "operation and maintenance" of prison facilities and the
"supervision of inmates," though, and Wexford says the department
has wider latitude when it comes to health care. The state argues in its
brief that the department has the authority to sign the health care contracts
whether lawmakers order it in budget proviso language or not, and says that
unlike the case dealing with South Florida prisons, the department had
already developed a thorough business case for health care privatization
before the 2011 legislative session. In a brief supporting the nurses
association, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees argues the state is only authorized to contract specialized
services that the department cannot provide on its own, such as substance abuse
treatment -- meaning the state would need to change the law to issue
contracts for "comprehensive" health care services. Attorney
General Pam Bondi has appealed Fulford's ruling at the urging of
legislative leaders, who have noted that budget proviso language has been
used to order the privatization of prison-related services in the past,
including in 2000, when lawmakers used proviso to order the department to
issue contracts for inmate health care in South Florida, an arrangement
that was later abandoned. The Florida Chamber of Commerce has filed a
"friend of the court" brief with the appellate court, arguing
Fulford's ruling "effectively strips the Legislature of its authority
to direct how state funds are to be used to accomplish its goals of privatization,"
which the chamber contends violates the separation of powers. Stephen
Turner, a lawyer for the Police Benevolent Association who is also
representing the nurses association, has countered that the constitution
requires some budget procedures to be accomplished through general laws.
"The purpose for the proviso was to avoid the statutory safeguards,
and rush a privatization contract through without fair comparison, careful
review, or public scrutiny," he argues.
November 21, 2006 Tallahassee
Democrat
After making a dramatic decision not to award a $707 million contract
for prison health care, the Florida Department of Corrections spent its
first day Monday managing the job itself. ''We are very confident that we
can do this,'' said DOC Secretary Jim McDonough. ''I have been tracking it
hour by hour and it appears that the transition is going very well.''
McDonough stunned the private prison-health-care industry late last week
when he announced that the department was rejecting Tennessee-based Prison
Health Services' latest bid to continue the work. The company's existing
contract expired at just after midnight on Sunday. PHS has a troubled
history with the department, one that began earlier this year when it
announced it was pulling out of a 10-year contract it originally signed in
2005 because its $645 million bid did not anticipate the cost of
hospitalizing sick inmates. The department recently announced that it was
fining PHS $696,000 for failing to meet a series of benchmarks, including
keeping legible medical records and missing deadlines to assign caseworkers
and perform medical evaluations. Regardless, PHS was the department's
choice again last month, after it was allowed to compete in a new round of
bidding. That changed again after Pennsylvania-based rival Wexford Health
Sources Inc. challenged the PHS award, saying that its lowest bid of $689
million should have made it the winner. McDonough said Monday that a new
evaluation by outside experts showed that none of the contractors had the
financial qualifications to complete the contract. ''Therefore, there were
no responsive and responsible bidders,'' McDonough said. PHS spokesman John
Van Mol said the company would have no comment. Wexford executives could
not be reached for comment. As recently as this month, McDonough praised
the effort to hand over the job of treating 16,000 inmates in South Florida
to private industry, describing it as a $20 million cost saver for
taxpayers. But at the same time, McDonough ordered his contract managers to
begin an intensive review process to see if the department could perform
the work itself. McDonough said the solution they came up with is a
''hybrid'' form of privatization that involves issuing 145 smaller
contracts and purchasing orders. The department does not have to hire
additional workers to get the job done, McDonough said. McDonough estimates
that there will be a $12 million additional cost to the department in the
first year, but that the department will save money in the long run. ''I
have, in effect, cut out the middle man,'' McDonough said. ''I think we
have come up with a very cost-effective way of doing it.'' Sen. Dave
Aronberg, D-Greenacres, has been a critic of the privatization effort since
it began under McDonough's predecessor. Aronberg pressured McDonough to
impose the fines on PHS, and says he will be watching the department's
performance under the new scheme. ''This is too important an issue to have
a new policy in place every two weeks,'' Aronberg said.''We
are very confident that we can do this. ..... it appears that the
transition is going very well.''
November 17, 2006 AP
The Department of Corrections announced Friday that it will divide health
services for nearly 18,000 inmates in South Florida prisons among many
providers instead of bidding one comprehensive, multimillion-dollar
contract. The agency has issued about 115 purchase orders and more than 30
non-bid contracts for its new health plan that goes into effect midnight
Monday. A little-used state law provides an exception to bidding
requirements for medical services, but two price quotes still were obtained
for each contract, said department spokeswoman Gretl
Plessinger. The decision was made after a review
by independent auditors caught an error in the state's financial analysis after
a second round of bidding for a comprehensive contract last month. The
revised analysis indicated all bidders failed to met
financial responsibility requirements. In October the agency declared its
intent to award a $703 million, 10-year contract to Prison Health Services
of Brentwood, Tenn., as the only "responsible and responsive
bidder" based on the erroneous financial calculations. The contract
award had been subject to negotiating final terms and resolving another
bidder's protest. The rebidding had been ordered in response to Prison
Health Services' decision to pull out of its current $645 million contract,
signed earlier this year, claiming it was losing money on the deal.
"DOC has a legal and moral obligation to provide appropriate health
care, while ensuring the most efficient use of taxpayer money,"
Corrections Secretary James McDonough said in a statement. "The
department has taken all necessary steps to ensure those obligations are
met." A spokeswoman for Prison Health Services' parent, American
Service Group Inc., declined comment beyond a news release that simply
announced the state's decision and that the company will not provide
service past Monday. McDonough last month also announced he intended to
levy fines against the company for shortcomings under the original
contract. Wexford Health Resources of Pittsburgh, Pa., had challenged the
department's intent to award the rebid contract to Prison Health Services.
Wexford submitted the low bid of $689 million but the department deemed the
company was not financially qualified. Wexford did not immediately respond
to a telephone message seeking comment. McDonough said he is confident
inmates and taxpayers will benefit from the new plan. "This
private-public hybrid is a groundbreaking approach to privatization efforts
that have brought great savings to Florida taxpayers," he said.
November 7, 2006 Tallahassee
Democrat
A Pennsylvania-based prison health-care firm filed a formal protest Monday,
disputing the Department of Corrections decision to award a $707 million,
10-year contract to a rival company with a troubled history. Wexford Health
Sources Inc. filed a 10-page protest late in the day, saying that its
lowest bid of $689 million should have given it the advantage and that the
department made mistakes in calculating its financial strength. A Wexford
executive questioned why the department awarded the bid to Tennessee-based
Prison Health Services Inc., even though the department said Monday that it
is fining PHS $696,000 for problems with its past work. ''The question has
to come to mind, how can PHS be determined to be a responsible bidder?''
Wexford President and CEO Mark Hale said. Department spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said the
department received the protest at the end of the business day and would
not be able to comment until after it had time to study the document. PHS
initially won the job in 2005 with a $645 million bid, tens of millions of
dollars lower than Wexford. But PHS abruptly announced it was pulling out
last year. PHS said it dramatically underestimated the cost of
hospitalizing sick inmates and was losing too much money. However, PHS was
invited to compete again when the department put out a new bid. ''Yes,
$696,000 is a lot of money, but this is a $78 million-a-year contract and
in terms of the overall contract, it is less than 1 percent,'' Plessinger said.
July 28, 2006 St
Petersburg Times
A federal grand jury in Tampa indicted seven people Thursday on charges
of filing fraudulent income tax returns using inmate identities and getting
back nearly $1-million in illegal tax refunds. Daniel Goodheart, 36, a
former psychiatric counselor for the Okeechobee Correctional Institution,
and Frankie Jackson, 32, a former corrections officer there, were among
those who IRS investigators say retrieved inmates' names and Social
Security numbers from the Florida Department of Corrections intranet, then
used them to prepare false income tax documents for inmates at nine Florida
prisons. They are accused of working with John Palmer, 46, an inmate at the
time, who prosecutors believe also conspired with four other acquaintances
and inmates. In all, the scheme generated U.S. Treasury checks totaling
$902,487 for the conspirators, according to IRS special agent Norm Meadows.
The checks were processed at several banks throughout the state, including
some in St. Petersburg. Goodheart was employed with the prison system
through Wexford Health Associates, the IRS said.
September 16, 2005 Sun-Sentinel
Florida prison officials are defending their plans to divide an estimated
$70 million annual contract for providing inmate health services at 13
South Florida prisons into four separate but lucrative contracts -- a move
that has sparked interest from legislators, lobbyists and vendors. Several
South Florida legislators said during a committee workshop Thursday that
one result of the changes may be the Florida Department of Corrections
weakens standards for the quality of inmate care. State Rep. Jack Seiler,
D-Wilton Manors, said his review of contract paperwork shows that
corrections officials have, without specific legislative authorization,
lowered the guidelines dealing with the size and experience of staff that a
private health care vendor would have to meet in order to
bid on the contracts. "The standards are not as strict as they were
when the contract was set five years ago," Seiler said. "The
result of that is ... all of a sudden [the state] could end up with a
company that is not qualified to do the job." Five years ago, the
state contracted with Wexford Health Sources to provide medical,
pharmaceutical, mental health and dental care for thousands of inmates in
South Florida prisons. Last year, legislators cut that contract short and
ordered that the work be divided among separate specialized vendors. The
Legislature's auditing arm called Wexford's medical care
"problematic" a year ago.
September 15, 2005 St Petersburg Times
Florida's top prison official has gone to concerts and sporting events with
a lobbyist for clients seeking business with prisons. But Corrections Secretary James Crosby says
he paid his own way and that he and Don Yaeger, a Sports Illustrated
writer who also runs a lobbying firm, do not have a social relationship. A
lucrative contract for inmate health care is on the line, and lawmakers,
lobbyists and vendors are all keenly interested. A House committee that
oversees prison spending will hold a hearing today on a contract for
medical, dental, pharmacy and mental health for 17,000 inmates in South
Florida prisons for five years. Yaeger has a client who wants a
piece of the action, but others do too. Both Crosby and Yaeger find
themselves as human ammunition in a high-stakes battle between rival
vendors. Crosby acknowledges that he brought his wife to see the rock band
Aerosmith, country singer George Strait , and a rodeo at Yaeger's skybox
at the Leon
County Civic
Center . He also says
he saw a Florida State-North Carolina State football game and FSU-Florida
baseball game with the lobbyist. Yaeger represents a Miami
firm, Medical Care Consortium, which is affiliated with Armor Correctional
Health Services, a Broward County
firm interested in the South Florida
prison contract. But Armor says the state's bid requirements are
"unreasonably restrictive," and the firm can't apply for the work
because Crosby 's staff requires
companies to have served a daily inmate population of 10,000 for at least
one of the past three years. The health care firm with the most to lose in
the latest vendor battle is Yaeger's main competitor, Wexford Health
Sources, a Pittsburgh firm that won the South
Florida contract in 2001. Wexford is fighting to keep caring
for sick prisoners in South Florida
, but it has a troubled past with the Corrections Department. The
Legislature's watchdog agency called Wexford's medical care
"problematic" a year ago and warned that without closer
oversight, the state was inviting another federal lawsuit over quality of
care. Things got so bad that the state threatened to impose monetary
damages on Wexford, but a state official monitoring the contract, Larry Purintun, cited "substantial improvement" in
July. By then, the Legislature had inserted a provision in the new state
budget requiring that the contract be put out to bid next month.
Illinois
Department of Corrections
Jul
11, 2014 wbez.org
On
July 28, 2012, Elawndoe Shannon put in a request
for sick call at the prison where he was housed in Lawrence, Illinois. Two
days later, he died. The day after his death a nurse in the health care
unit finally got his request slip for medical care. “That means somebody
took it and just said, ‘Oh it don’t matter, ain’t
nothing wrong with him.’ That’s crazy!” said his sister Jackie Shannon in a
recent interview on the front porch of her house on Chicago’s South Side.
“Everybody’s entitled to see a doctor. I don’t care, you could live in a
hole somewhere. If you come out of that hole and you’re sick, you should be
able to see a doctor. How many other ones in there that need to see the
doctor are not seeing a doctor?” she said. It’s not unusual for Illinois
inmates to complain that they have trouble seeing doctors. In another
story, WBEZ reported on Anthony Rencher who went to the prison health care
unit in the middle of the night where he was observed in the waiting room
for an hour before he returned to his cell where he died. And then there’s
the case of Daniel Nevarez. . Letter from the grave: Daniel’s
brother Alonzo Nevarez sits on the front stoop of his dad’s bungalow near
Midway Airport and reads through a letter his brother Danny wrote from
prison. “We got the letter after Danny passed, and it was, it’s him talking
from the grave actually,” said Nevarez. It’s in Spanish and Alonzo
translates while he reads. “The reason for this card, to beg you to help
him, he’s sick, and the people from this facility, no me quieren, they don’t want to help me. These people are
not taking me serious. I need help.” According to medical records, in March
of 2010 Nevarez complained to a prison health care worker of pain in his
knee. The prison took an X-ray but found nothing. The doctor prescribed
some drugs and told Nevarez to exercise as much as possible. A year later
Nevarez was still complaining about his knee. He was prescribed Motrin and
referred to a doctor. The next two appointments with the prison doctor were
cancelled, one because of understaffing and another one because there was
no security escort. “He called when he was in prison complaining that they
were ignoring him. They wouldn’t let him see the doctor,” said Nevarez. The
medical records also show that on several occasions Nevarez refused to see
health care workers. In one instance he’s quoted as refusing to see the
prison doctor because he wants to be immediately taken for surgery on his
knee. On another occasion he refuses to pay the $2.00 co-pay and is
therefore denied care. Cancer diagnosis: When the mass on his knee
was diagnosed as cancer 15 months after his first complaints, the tumor was
hard to miss. It was 5 centimeters by 5 centimeters by 3 centimeters.
Daniel’s father Salvador Nevarez said his son was complaining that the
prison wasn’t giving him health care, so the
family had a lawyer contact the prison. Nevarez went to an outside hospital
where the tumor was removed. He also went for 33 radiation treatments. A
year after his treatments on December 13, 2012, Nevarez once again sought
medical care. According to records he appears to have fainted and gotten a
cut above his eye when he fell. He told doctors his head hurt and he couldn’t
remember things. A doctor at the facility seems to have decided Nevarez was
lying in an attempt to get drugs. The way it’s recorded in the medical
record is: “appears to be med seeking.” Nevarez was sent back to his cell.
He fell into a coma. A CT scan of his head was taken and it showed he had
two large, dense brain tumors and swelling in his brain. He died that day
at the age of 31. The autopsy states, “Given the lack of follow up care and
systemic chemotherapy for this patient, in combination with with the poor prognosis in general for such a tumor, it
is not surprising that he developed widespread metastases a year after
diagnosis.” In the death review the department handed over to WBEZ, where
it asks, ‘Was an earlier intervention possible?’ the answer is redacted. On
the non-redacted version given to the family, it says the cancer diagnosis
could have been made sooner, though it says it was, “probably too late for
significant intervention.” Seeing a doctor 'can take months': “It’s
a symptom of an overloaded system that it takes forever to get over to a
doctor,” said Alan Mills, an attorney specializing in prison litigation.
“And then once you’re there you don’t see the doctor right away, you go
through two or three screening processes before you finally get to see a
doctor. So that can take months.”
“There
are red flags all over the place,” said Mills. “But without the details,
you have to get beyond just saying, ‘well this person died too soon.’ You
don’t know that unless a doctor looks at the medical records and says, ‘no
this test was done or this test wasn’t done, this is what the follow should
have been and it wasn’t.’” That work is now being done by a doctor
appointed by a federal judge as part of the class action suit Mills filed
over health care. The State of Illinois pays a company called Wexford
Health Sources more than $100 million a year to provide health care in the
prisons. Wexford did not return repeated calls for comment over the last
two weeks. That’s just the most recent refusal—WBEZ has had an ongoing
request for an interview with the company for almost two years. Attorney
Alan Mills has studied the contract between Wexford and the state. “Wexford
gets paid the same amount whether they provide a lot of care or a little
care, so therefore, every time they provide care their stockholders lose
money. So that is a fine model, but you have to have some control to make
sure that they’re actually providing the care that you’re contracted to
giving them. Nobody in the state of Illinois regularly audits the Wexford
contract, either financially, or more importantly, a health audit to see
what the outcomes are that we’re getting,” said Mills. IDOC won't
discuss Mills: Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman Tom Shaer won’t discuss issues raised by Mills. “I’m not
going to discuss anything that Alan Mills says because Alan Mills has been
proven to state things that are false, so I’m going to respectfully decline
to include any information coming from Alan Mills in this interview.
Anybody else you want to talk about, fine, not him,” said Shaer. The medical director who oversees more than $100
million Illinois pays Wexford for medical care refused to speak to WBEZ.
WBEZ asked Gov. Pat Quinn’s office about the medical director’s refusal to
discuss medical care. After an initial conversation the governor’s office
simply ignored follow-up calls and emails from WBEZ. Illinois prisons
have low death rates compared to other prisons: Shaer
says focussing on just a few cases does not give
an accurate picture of health care in the department. He points to Bureau
of Justice statistics showing Illinois’ prison system has one of the lowest
death rates in the country compared to other prison systems. "We have
pretty high standards here. We do the best we can within our ability to
monitor that and if we felt that our ability wasn’t adequate, we would find
a way to address that,” said Shaer. Independent
experts should provide some answers soon: “I see enough things that
tell me there are really some warning signs here. I mean there are
problems,” said State Rep. Greg Harris. Harris held committee hearings last
year to dig into allegations of poor care. “You know in the testimony, in
the contacts from individual families, in the lawsuits that have been
settled and paid by the state for deaths that should have been preventable,
I know there are things that we should have done that we did not do and
that there are probably things that we ought to be doing better now,” said
Harris. As a result of the hearings, Harris concluded that no one in
Illinois is paying close attention to the $100 million the state pays
Wexford every year. Harris brought in the National Commission on
Correctional Health Care to audit health care, both the finances, and the
health outcomes. He says independent experts who know how to evaluate
health care in a prison setting are looking at the system and should
provide some answers soon. That audit is in addition to a federal court
monitor who is also evaluating Illinois’ prison health care system in
response to complaints.
Jan
20, 2014 couriernews.suntimes.com
A
former Kane County Jail inmate is suing Kane County Sheriff Pat Perez,
alleging that he was denied depression and anxiety medication during his
incarceration, which led to a suicide attempt. Randy Brattin,
33, of Elburn, is seeking more than $50,000 in damages, and has named
Perez, and Wexford Health Sources, Inc. in the suit he filed earlier this
month. Wexford contracts with the jail to provide medical services to
inmates, according to court records. Brattin was
taken into custody on Nov. 30, 2012, on his fourth drunken driving charge,
fleeing/eluding deputies and several other charges. During his
incarceration, Brattin said he was denied his
prescribed and required medication for the treatment of anxiety, depression
and seizures. The suit claims that jail policy is to inventory medication
brought in by an inmate, and then to have the Sheriff’s Department’s own
medical staff supply the same or equivalent medications to the inmate. Brattin said in the lawsuit that never happened.
Instead, he said, doctors never regularly examined him, or contacted his
primary care physician or family regarding his medical care. In the suit, Brattin said he notified staff at the jail that he was
supposed to be taking the medication. Brattin
“never received the medication he requested” the suit alleges. Because of
this, Brattin attempted to take his own life by
cutting his wrists on Dec. 6, 2012, the lawsuit states. As a result of
being denied his medication, Brattin “suffered
severe depression, and/or panic attack ... and attempted to commit
suicide,” the suit states. Perez would not comment on the pending
allegation. Brattin’s case management conference
is scheduled for Feb. 20 in Kane County.
March
26, 2013 wbez.org
When
William Jessup got to Vandalia prison he went to the dentist. Jessup says
the dentist told him he had two cavities and offered to pull them. Wait..huh? “No, you’re gonna pull my teeth out. Any
qualified dentist will tell you it’s always best to keep your teeth,” said
Jessup in a recent interview at the Vandalia prison in southern Illinois.
“I’m assuming it still applies here but obviously it don’t, because I still
have the two cavities.” When Anthony Rivera first got to Vandalia prison he
caught some sort of foot fungus. His feet started smelling bad and he
started getting sores, so he went to the doctor there and the doctor gave
him foot cream but it was expired. When he told the doctor it was expired,
he says the doctor told him that those were just numbers on the container,
not an expiration date. “I’m like, what are you talking about,” said
Rivera. “It says 9/17/2010. How that’s gonna be just regular numbers?
He’s like, well you don’t want it then leave, so I
took it just to take it. I put it on my feet but it got worse.”
Rivera says the sores on his feet got so large and painful that eventually
he couldn’t walk. “They gave me some kind of a shot and it relieved it a
little bit but it took a nice three months,” said Rivera. Illinois taxpayers
are paying Wexford Health Sources, a private health care company, moe than $1.3 billion over ten years to provide care
for inmates in prisons. But most of the inmates WBEZ has talked to say,
unless it’s an emergency, they’re not getting the care taxpayers have
already paid for. And the Illinois Department of Corrections doesn’t seem
to have any mechanism to ensure that taxpayers aren’t being fleeced in the
health care deal. One more case. Jeff Elders. (Elders and Jessup were both
featured in our story Tuesday about Illinois spending big money on people
convicted of relatively minor crimes. Jessup got a four-year sentence for
having a stolen license plate sticker. Elders got a couple years for trying
to steal $111 from J.C. Penney.) Elders has a hard growth on the palm of
his right hand. He holds it up for me to see and pokes at the hard
part. “It’s all along the tendon,” said Elders. It’s climbing probably
three inches up my hand on my tendon. That’s all hard, real hard and right
here there’s a big ol’ thing. It’s pulling that
finger in. They say it’s a calcium build-up. They called it some kind
of hemotobin globin, er...” It’s like a hard
stick under his skin that runs from his wrist towards the ring finger on
his right hand. It breaks into two strands as it approaches the knuckle,
making the growth under his skin look like the letter ‘Y.’ It pulls his one
finger back so it’s constantly curled and he can’t straighten it out, and
it’s getting worse. He went to see the prison doctor about the problem.
“They tell you flat out, they can’t do nothing for you,” said Elders.
“Unless it’s an immediate issue, they’re not doing nothing for you. He
said, well, I’ll give you some aspirins and I suggest you take care of it
as soon as you can when you get out or you’re going to end up like this,
all crippled up, but there’s nothing we’re going to do for you here.”
Elders wasn’t surprised by the ‘treatment.’ “That, to me, it’s what I’m
used to. It’s the system. Everything’s blamed on not enough money. What can
you do with that? I have no kind of say so. If you back-talk anybody you’re
in trouble,” said Elders. I took some of these stories to the guy in charge
of Vandalia prison, Warden Victor Dozier. I told Dozier about Jessup, the
guy who was told by the dentist that he had cavities and was also told that
all they would do for him was pull the teeth. DOZIER: Really. WILDEBOER:
Yeah. DOZIER: That’s hard to believe but.... I also asked Dozier about
Elders and the growth on his hand. Dozier said offenders can file
grievances. That’s the name for the formal complaint process in Illinois
prisons. But in the next breath Dozier all but admitted that filing a
grievance on a medical issue would be pointless. “If the doctor states,
gives him a rational why he can’t do it, I mean, he’s our medical director.
I can’t question what he tells the offender,” said Dozier. Admittedly, a
corrections professional shouldn’t be overruling the health care decisions
of a medical professional. But then who does vet the health care decisions
being made? In written statements given to WBEZ over the last several
months, the Department of Corrections has said repeatedly that it oversees
health care, holding, “monthly continuous quality improvement meetings.”
But the department has yet to provide someone who can explain exactly what
happens at these meetings, who’s involved or what information they’re
looking at. According to the prison watchdog group the John Howard
Association no one seems to be providing meaningful oversight of prison
health care. In fact, last year, the John Howard Association reported that
the state entered into a more than $1.3 billion contract with a company
called Wexford Health Sources without auditing the company’s previous
performance in the state. I asked Warden Dozier how he, as the top official
at the Vandalia prison, ensures that Wexford is delivering the care that
Illinois taxpayers have been paying for. “Okay, I don’t have an answer for
that,” said Dozier. The lack of oversight has caught the attention of state
Rep. Greg Harris. “Well, I’ve heard similar stories and actually worse, and
I’m very concerned that we’re paying about $1.3 billion dollars to a
private company to manage health care in our prisons, and I want to look
into are we getting quality health care for the folks for the money that
we’re paying,” said Harris. Greg Harris has been looking into the health
care contract. His interest was piqued by the John Howard Association
report last year. Harris says his review of the contract shows that the
deal is a good one as long as Wexford actually provides the care they’re
supposed to provide. “I mean we can’t take the Department of Corrections
word for it and we can’t take the private company’s word for it,” said
Harris. ”I want somebody to go in and independently verify that people are
being adequately treated.” Harris is planning to hold a hearing on April
4th in Chicago to take a closer look at the contract. He’s pushing to bring
the National Commission on Correctional Health Care into Illinois prisons
to provide independent oversight. Wexford declined to be interviewed for
this story. In fact, the company with a billion-dollar public contract in
Illinois has refused all of our requests for interviews. However, in a
written statement, they said they provide medically necessary care as
required by the constitution while at the same time acting as responsible
stewards of taxpayer dollars. Wexford also says it welcomes Rep. Harris’
push to bring a third party into the Illinois prisons to audit Wexford’s
performance.
Oct 11, 2012 The Associated Press
(Raleigh, NC) -- Two guards at a private prison in North Carolina have been
charged with accepting bribes to smuggle in cellphones and cigarettes.
Rhonda Boyd and Raye Lynn Holley worked as correctional officers at Rivers
Correctional Institution, a 1,450-bed prison in Winton, N.C. According to a
federal criminal indictment made public Wednesday, Boyd is charged with
conspiracy to commit bribery and acceptance of a bribe, while Holley is
charged with accepting a bribe. The indictment alleges that the two had
been smuggling contraband into the prison since early 2011. Rivers is a
private prison owned by The GEO Group, Inc., a Florida-based company that
contracts with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to house federal inmates and
detainees. Many of the prisoners housed at the facility are from the
District of Columbia.
October 9, 2012 WBEZ News
An Illinois state legislator is demanding answers about a huge healthcare
contract for prison inmates. Democratic Rep. Greg Harris from Chicago’s
Northwest Side is pushing HR 1248, a House resolution calling for an
official examination of how the state failed to audit Wexford Health
Sources before signing a $1.4 billion contract with the private health care
company last year. WBEZ has been reporting on poor health care in the
prisons, and a recent report by the prison watchdog John Howard Association
found that no one in the state is checking on Wexford to make sure they’re
providing the care they’re being paid for. Harris's audit would change that.
Harris says there are 250 lawsuits against the state right now alleging
poor health care. He says he's been seeking proof that Wexford is
actually earning the $115 million Illinois pays them every year, but he’s
not satisfied with what he’s found. “I got a one-page response from the
Department of Corrections saying they're doing it. To me that's just
not adequate,” said Harris. “We need to dig beyond what people tell us that
there's no problem here, keep moving, there's nothing to see. We as
legislators need to do our jobs and monitor these contracts.” Harris says
dollars are in short supply and there needs to be independent oversight of
the enormous private contract. He says Wexford may be providing great care
to Illinois inmates, but he wants an independent agency to make sure that's
the case.
January 6, 2009 The
Pantagraph
Unionized health care workers at 27 Illinois prisons are mulling
whether to go on strike over wages. The 350-plus workers are employed by
Wexford Health Sources of Pennsylvania, which recently received a two-year,
$210 million extension in its contract to provide health care to inmates
within the state's sprawling prison system. The health care workers
represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees union say they want a wage increase similar to a 4 percent boost
the union recently inked with a different prison health care contractor.
''Wexford should not have any difficulty meeting the pay and benefit levels
of its competitors,'' AFSCME spokesman Buddy Maupin said Monday. The
company, which has given embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich $38,000 in campaign
contributions since he took office, did not immediately respond to
questions. The Illinois Department of Corrections said the matter, for now,
is between the company and the union. ''We hope they come to an
agreement,'' said Corrections spokesman Derek Schnapp. It isn't the first
time AFSCME has tangled with Wexford. Three years ago, union workers
threatened to strike, raising the possibility that management-level health
care workers would have to provide care to inmates. State officials averted
the 2005 strike by firing Wexford and bringing in a new company. Wexford
eventually was re-hired and received an extension to its contract in late
December worth an additional $5 million over its previous deal.
July 30, 2008 AP
Fighting back tears and apologizing to his teenage daughters, the former
head of the Illinois prison system was sentenced to two years in federal
prison Wednesday for taking payoffs from lobbyists. ''What I did was
absolutely wrong,'' said Donald Snyder, who admitted pocketing $50,000 from
lobbyists when he was director of the Illinois Department of Corrections.
He said he hoped his conviction on the charges would not bias employers
against his daughters when they grow up and look for jobs. ''I'm sorry,
girls,'' he said, turning to the bench where they were sitting. As he tried
to finish his statement, his face turned dark red, he grimaced and was
unable to speak. Judge James B. Zagel chastised
Snyder, who pleaded guilty, volunteered to be a federal witness, secretly
recorded corrupt conversations and testified at the trial of one of the
lobbyists. ''I didn't believe much of your testimony and I didn't believe
much of your testimony because of your claimed lack of memory,'' Zagel told him. He said Snyder diminished the stature
of government officials by setting a terrible example and making people
doubt their integrity. ''You hear over and over against that all government
officials are corrupt,'' said Zagel, a one-time
Illinois law enforcement director. Zagel brushed
aside letters from Snyder's neighbors in downstate Pittsfield, vouching for
him as someone well liked in the community. ''You should have stayed in
Pittsfield,'' Zagel said. Snyder admitted that he
took $30,000 from Larry Sims, a lobbyist for two vendors. He said he
pocketed up to $20,000 from two other lobbyists, former Cook County
undersheriff John Robinson and Michael J. Mahoney. Sims and Robinson have
pleaded guilty. Mahoney was acquitted in a bench trial before Zagel who said he didn't believe Snyder's testimony.
The case drew the spotlight not only because of Snyder's position but
because Mahoney had lobbied the prison system while executive director of
the John Howard Association, a prison reform organization. At his trial,
Mahoney admitted what he had done but argued that whatever the ethical
lapses, he simply had not done anything illegal. Zagel
agreed, though he said the defense was ''inherently unattractive.''
July 20, 2007 Sun
Times
The former director of the Illinois Department of Corrections was indicted
Thursday for allegedly taking $50,000 in illegal kickbacks to hand out
state contracts to favored companies, including $20,000 in bribes from the
former undersheriff of Cook County. The former undersheriff, John Robinson,
who left his job under a cloud, had a side job as a lobbyist for companies
such as Addus Health Care of Palatine, trying to
get them state business. He succeeded in getting Addus
a contract providing health-care services in Illinois prisons in part
because he bribed then-state Corrections Director Donald Snyder with
$20,000, according to the indictment. $30,000 in alleged bribes - "Addus Health Care has not had a relationship with
Robinson for several years, is not accused of any wrongdoing, didn't know
the alleged activity was taking place, and is assisting authorities every
step of the way," said Dave Bayless, a company spokesman. Addus is referred to as "Company A" in the
indictment. Also indicted Thursday was Larry Sims, a lobbyist who allegedly
gave Snyder $30,000 in bribes so state business could go to an unnamed
Pennsylvania health-care company. Snyder, 52, of Downstate Pittsfield, was
director of the state prisons under former Gov. George Ryan, from 1999 until
2003. Thursday's indictments grew out of the Operation Safe Road probe of
corruption in the Ryan administration. Robinson, 59, of Barrington Hills,
was undersheriff of Cook County from 1991 until 2000. He resigned amid a
grand jury probe of him allegedly using his undersheriff stationery to
solicit business for a British Virgin Islands-based company that ran an
alleged investment scam. He was never charged. Robinson was undersheriff
for part of the time he allegedly passed money -- in increments, totaling
$20,000 -- to Snyder. 5 counts of mail fraud - "John is in a proper
manner facing his charges. He will do what is right," Robinson's
lawyer, George Collins, said. Robinson is currently unemployed, Collins
said. Sims, 58, of Downstate Pleasant Plains, was a lobbyist for several
vendors, including the Pennsylvania company. Snyder and Robinson were each
charged with five counts of mail fraud. Sims was charged with one count of
perjury for allegedly lying to the grand jury during the investigation.
Attorneys for Snyder and Sims could not be reached for comment. [Indictment
is at www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/pr/chicago/2007/pr0719_02.pdf ] [US Attorney
Press Release]
October 26, 2006 Sun
Times
Gov. Blagojevich remembers political insider Stuart Levine spilling a
cup of coffee on him during a New York fund-raising trip that is under
federal scrutiny, but insists Levine spilled nothing about any illegal
scheme to trade government business for campaign cash. "That's
ridiculous," Blagojevich said Wednesday. "Absolutely not. Of
course not." The Democratic governor spoke for the first time in
detail about the 2003 trip as supporters of his GOP rival, state Treasurer
Judy Baar Topinka, said an itinerary shows
Blagojevich illegally mixed government and political fund-raising. The
itinerary lists meetings at New York's Harvard Club between Deputy Gov.
Bradley Tusk, top Blagojevich fund-raiser Christopher G. Kelly and
representatives of two companies. Those firms, Maximus Inc. and Wexford
Health Sources, do millions of dollars in state business each year. Each
also has contributed five-figure sums to Blagojevich. Feds probing trips:
The Chicago Sun-Times last month reported that the Oct. 29, 2003, trip --
plus another to the East Coast later -- are focuses of a federal pay-to-play
probe of state government. "The chief fund-raiser is meeting with
people who are interested in government contracts along with a high-ranking
member of the governor's staff," said Joe Birkett, DuPage County's
state's attorney and GOP candidate for lieutenant governor. "You're
setting the table to exchange your governmental decision-making in exchange
for a political benefit." Blagojevich campaign spokesman Doug Scofield
dismissed the criticism. Kelly and Tusk, he said, never met with Wexford or
Maximus -- despite what the "preliminary draft" schedule
indicates. "Bradley and Chris were not in any meetings together. I
really have no idea why it would be that way on the schedule,"
Scofield said. "You have a schedule that looks like it's inaccurate in
a number of ways."
August 25, 2006 The
New Mexican
Santa Fe County has interviewed four people who applied to be the new jail
administrator. One high-profile candidate, however, took her name out of
the hat just before interviews were slated to begin Thursday. Ann Casey, a
lobbyist and Illinois jail official embroiled in controversy over her
relationship with state Corrections Secretary Joe Williams, had applied for
the job along with five others. Casey canceled her interview Thursday and
said she no longer wanted to be considered for the job, according to
Assistant County Attorney Carolyn Glick. Casey was in the news in New
Mexico when the state put Williams on unpaid leave and launched an
investigation. Officials looked into his relationship with the woman, including
use of his work cell phone and other expenses after the Albuquerque Journal
reported billing records for his state cell phone showed 644 calls between
the two over five months. Williams returned to work and is on probation
following what a governor's aide called "a lapse in judgment."
Illinois officials also looked into the matter, but Casey remains in her
position of assistant warden of programs at the Centralia Correctional
Center, said department spokesman Derek Schnapp. Casey was not available
for comment.
May 31, 2006 New
Mexican
A state prison contractor involved in the investigation of a
relationship between Corrections Secretary Joe Williams and a lobbyist
contributed $10,000 to Gov. Bill Richardson's re-election campaign. The
political-action committee for Aramark -- a Philadelphia-based company that
makes millions of dollars a year to feed New Mexico inmates -- contributed
to Richardson's campaign in May 2005, according to Richardson's most recent
campaign-finance report. That was about a year after Aramark renewed its
contract with the state Corrections Department. Aramark also has been
generous to the state Democratic Party, contributing $10,000 in 2004, and
the Democratic Governors Association, which Richardson chairs. The company
contributed a total of $15,000 to the DGA in 2004 and another $15,000 in
2005, according to reports filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Aramark
provides food service to more than 475 correctional institutions in North
America. The corporation also has food-service contracts in colleges,
hospitals, convention centers and stadiums. Richardson spokesman Pahl Shipley referred questions about the campaign
donation to Richardson's campaign manager, Amanda Cooper, who couldn't be
reached for comment. The Governor's Office announced this week that
Williams is being put on administrative leave while the state Personnel
Office investigates his relationship with Ann E. Casey, who registered as a
lobbyist for Aramark and Wexford Health Services, which provides health
care to New Mexico inmates. Casey is an assistant warden at an Illinois
prison. A copyrighted story in the Albuquerque Journal said Williams'
state-issued cell-phone records show 644 calls between Williams and Casey
between Sept. 24, 2005, and Feb. 23. According to that report, Casey was
hired as a consultant by Aramark in 2005, but that contract has since been
terminated. Aramark's $5.4 million contract ends in July. The Secretary of
State Office's Lobbyist Index lists Casey as a lobbyist for Wexford, though
the Journal report quotes a Wexford official saying the company never hired
her. In 2004, a $10,000 contribution to a Richardson political committee
from Wexford's parent company caused a stir and later was returned to the
Pittsburgh company. The Bantry Group made the contribution to Richardson's
Moving America Forward PAC in April 2004. This was during a bidding process
just a month after the Corrections Department requested proposals for a
contract to provide health care and psychiatric services to inmates. That
contract potentially is worth more than $100 million, The Associated Press
reported. In August 2004, a Richardson spokesman said the money would be
returned "to avoid even the appearance of impropriety."
May 30, 2006 AP
Gov. Bill Richardson has put Corrections Secretary Joe Williams on
unpaid leave while the secretary's recent actions are investigated.
Richardson said the review will focus on Williams' use of a state-issued
cell phone, a state-funded trip that included some personal travel and his
relationship with a lobbyist. "Gov. Richardson wants a thorough
investigation to examine the secretary's actions and determine if anything
improper occurred," said James Jimenez, Richardson's chief of staff.
"The governor sets a very high ethical standard for his administration
and will not tolerate any level of abuse of authority or public
trust." A spokeswoman for the Corrections Department said Williams was
unavailable for comment. State Personnel Director Sandra Perez will conduct
the investigation through her office, Jimenez said. Williams will be on
unpaid leave until June 9, the day Perez's office is to report to the
governor. The Albuquerque Journal reported Sunday that Williams spent about
91 hours on his state-issued cell phone talking with Ann Casey, an
assistant warden at a state prison in Centralia, Ill. The calls between the
two phones were placed between Sept. 24, 2005, and Feb. 23, 2006. Casey
registered as a lobbyist in 2005 for two companies that have contracts with
New Mexico to provide health care and meals to prisoners. Williams
described his relationship with Casey as a friendship and said he doesn't
give preferential treatment to anybody. Richardson also is questioning a
trip Williams took to Nashville on the state's dollar. In January, Williams
attended a conference of the American Correctional Association. His travel
records show he added a St. Louis leg to the trip, which he said was
personal. A 30-mile drive from the St. Louis airport would land Williams at
an address in O'Falcon, Ill., which Casey listed
on lobbyist registration forms. Records show Williams wrote a check to his
department in January for $266, the cost of adding the St. Louis trip.
While on the trip, Williams and Casey accepted a dinner invitation from a
company that operates a state prison in Santa Rosa, according to Williams'
e-mail records. A billing statement for a hotel stay during the trip also
lists two people in his party, but Williams would not say who the second
person was. Richardson appointed Williams, a former warden at the Lea
County Correctional Facility in Hobbs and former warden at two state
prisons, as corrections secretary in 2003.
November 24, 2005 State
Journal Register
Less than five months after the state government canceled a contract with
Wexford Health Sources to provide health care for most prison inmates, the
company is resuming those duties with a new contract worth a potential $547
million. The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, which
handles health-care procurement for most state agencies, awarded the
contract late Wednesday. The agreement will pay Pittsburgh-based Wexford
$97.6 million in the first year and $103.9 million in the second year, said
HFS spokeswoman Kathleen Strand. Among the other bidders on the contract
was Peoria-based Health Professionals Ltd., which the state hired after
ending its previous contract with Wexford in July. HPL had prior agreements
with the state to provide inmate health care at 10 other Illinois prisons,
and those remain in effect, Strand said. The state canceled the earlier
contract with Wexford just before the company's union-represented workers
planned to go on strike. Workers said they authorized the strike because
they were making little progress in contract talks with Wexford. The
Department of Corrections awarded emergency contracts worth an estimated
$55 million to HPL, and agency officials said at the time that the
contracts soon would be put out for long-term bid. The emergency contracts
cover the period from July 5, 2005, to Jan. 31, 2006. Wexford has
contributed about $25,000 to Illinois political campaign funds since 1994,
according to the State Board of Elections' Web site. The largest
contribution was $10,000 to Friends of Blagojevich, the governor's fund, in
November 2003.
August 27, 2005 Southern Illinoisan
In July, healthcare workers in Illinois prisons were so unhappy with
Wexford Health Sources Inc., the company that employed them under contract
with the state, they threatened to go on strike. Gov. Rod Blagojevich
stepped in and pulled the contract from Wexford and awarded it to Health
Professionals Limited. But the workers are still unhappy with Wexford,
alleging the company has failed to pay them for accumulated "paid time
off" including vacation and sick days. Wexford officials said it may
be as late as October, but they will indeed pay what is owed pending
receipt of information from HPL and money owed by the state of Illinois.
August 11, 2005 Pantagraph
In her job as a pharmacy technician at Lincoln Correctional Center, Kirsten
Lolling has doled out pills and prescriptions to prison inmates for more
than 12 years. On Wednesday, Lolling received some good medicine herself in
the form of a 24 percent pay hike and a host of other improvements in her
wage and benefits package. The added cash comes as part of a union contract
ratified Wednesday by nearly 380 privately employed prison health care
workers. Overall raises differ at the 23 prisons affected by the deal. The
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union reports
its contract with Peoria-based Health Professionals Ltd. will result in
better retirement benefits, cheaper health care costs and added benefits
for education and length of service. Faced with the prospect of having
inadequate staffing levels in many of its prisons, the Illinois Department
of Corrections dropped Wexford and its $83 million contract and brought in
HPL, which was already providing health care services at nine other state
prisons.
July 7,
2005 Pantagraph
A Pennsylvania-based company may sue the Illinois Department of Corrections
after the agency abruptly canceled its contract to avert a labor
strike. "We are looking at all our options," said Elaine Gedman, human resources chief of Pittsburgh-based
Wexford Health Sources Inc. "This is totally
unprecedented." The potential lawsuit comes in response to
action the state took Sunday as the clock ticked down on a potential strike
by nearly 380 nurses, pharmacists and other health-care professionals who
work in the prison system but are employed through Wexford. The
workers, represented by the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees Council 31, had threatened to walk off the job Tuesday
if their contract demands were not met. Dozens of workers at prisons in
Dwight, Pontiac and Lincoln are covered by the labor contract. But a
strike was averted late Sunday when the state terminated its lengthy
relationship with Wexford -- worth about $83 million this year -- and hired
a second company to manage health care at the prisons. The affected
workers, meanwhile, remain on the job while AFSCME attempts to negotiate a
new labor agreement with the new contractor, Health Professionals Limited.
July 5,
2005 State Journal Register
The state has dropped its contract with Wexford Health Sources Inc. to
provide health services at 23 state prisons on the eve of a scheduled
strike by its employees. Department of Corrections spokeswoman Dede Short
confirmed that an agreement had been reached between Corrections and Health
Professionals Limited to take over the Wexford contracts, which were
cancelled Monday. Health Professionals Limited is a private vendor that
currently provides similar health services in nine prisons, according to
representatives of American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees Council 31, which represented the Wexford prison employees. As a
result, the strike that had been scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. today,
affecting more than 350 Wexford employees at 23 state prisons, has been put
on hold, according to Anders Lindall, public
affairs director for AFSCME Council 31. Negotiations broke off Friday
between Wexford and the union. At the heart of the dispute is the
difference in pay, health and other benefits between Wexford's employees
and state workers, some of whom reportedly make twice as much as private vendor
health employees doing similar jobs. Wexford's workers provided medical,
dental and mental health services at nearly two dozen state prisons.
June
26, 2005 Lincoln Courier
More than 350 health care workers at Illinois prisons, including those
at Lincoln and Logan correctional centers, will go on strike July 5 if
contract negotiations between their union and their employer, Wexford
Health Sources, fail to produce an agreement. Wexford has state contracts to provide health care
at nearly two dozen correctional facilities. The union-represented Wexford workers voted 356-5
this week to authorize a strike, said Buddy Maupin, regional director for
Council 31 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees. For instance, he said, Wexford employees at state prisons
are paid "vastly inferior" wages compared with state employees
doing the same work. Kirsten Lolling, a pharmacy technician at Lincoln
Correctional Center, said she is paid $14 an hour, despite having 13 years
of experience. State employees doing the same job are paid about twice as
much, she said. "Philosophically, we don’t think that the
state should exploit its Wexford work force by using a low-wage,
low-benefit vendor to save money on the labor costs," Maupin said.
June
24, 2005 Copley News Service
Frustrated by a lack of progress in contract talks, more than 350 workers
who provide health care services to Illinois prison inmates have been
taking strike-authorization votes, the results of which will be announced
today. A contract between AFSCME and Pittsburgh, Pa.-based Wexford
Health Sources Inc. expires at midnight June 30, AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall said Thursday. Wexford has state contracts to
provide health-care services at most Illinois prisons. Negotiations on a
new contract started in April, but they have not gone smoothly, Lindall said. Wexford has proposed an "array
of draconian takeback measures," including reductions in pay and
benefits, he said.
August
18, 2003 Sun Times
News
The union representing Illinois’ 15,000 state prison employees
is praising Governor Blagojevich’s approval of legislation that would bar
the privatization of prison commissary services. Illinois law already
prohibits the privatization of all security functions in the state prisons.
AFSCME Council 31 initiated the new measure after former Governor George
Ryan made an aggressive effort to contract out commissary services in the
state’s 37 correctional facilities. Ryan contended that no security
function was involved in the commissaries, which sell non-essential goods
to inmates at reduced prices. SB 629 makes explicit the prohibition
against privatization of commissary services. It passed the General
Assembly earlier this year by overwhelming majorities in both houses.
April 28, 2003 Clinton
Herald
There's no money in the Illinois budget to staff and operate the Thompson
prison next year but the state is exploring options for using that facility
and other prisons not currently open. One option would be to turn
those facilities into federal prisons. Doing so would require the
Illinois Department of Corrections to first turn over the prisons to
private companies to run, and the private companies would then lease the
space to the federal prison system.
April
10, 2003 The
Southern Illinois
Union picket lines could begin appearing as early as next week
at eight Illinois Department of Corrections facilities because of stalled
contract talks between health care workers and the private vendor that
employs them. Health care workers have been without a contract since
Dec. 31 and have set Monday as a strike date, said Mark Samuels, public
affairs director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees, the state's largest public-service employee union. AFSCME
Regional Director Buddy Maupin said Tuesday that HPL is one of three
primary suppliers of health care services to the state corrections system.
Wexford and Addus are the other two principal
contractors. Maupin said HPL's contract proposals are not only
"inferior" to wages and benefits earned by state employees in
IDOC who provide the same services, but they are also below those paid by
Wexford and Addus.
Maryland
Department of Corrections
August 2 2013 Acc Lexology
Wexford Health Services, a company that offers medical
services to prisons, lost out to its competitor Corizon, Inc. on a contract
with the state of Maryland. Apparently a sore loser, Wexford retained a
public relations firm to create a Web site. Wexford’s CEO and its president
authored the content on the site. And that’s where the trouble began.
Wexford wrote the content to make it look like a Corizon insider drafted
it. The post blasted Corizon for its terrible service and its lack of
concern for its customer, the state of Maryland. Corizon filed a lawsuit,
alleging among other things, a violation of the federal Lanham Act. The
Lanham Act prohibits false and deceptive statements in commercial
advertisements. And that raised an interesting question – was the Web site
a commercial advertisement? According to the court it was. Corizon had to
establish three elements to make its case – the communication was an
advertisement, it referred to a specific product or service and Wexford had
an economic motive for posting the content. To be a commercial advertisement,
the statements had to be “disseminated to the relevant purchasing public
within the industry.” Wexford said it failed on that test, because less
than two dozen people saw the Web site. But according to the court, the
issue isn’t who sees the content, it’s the speaker’s intent. The question
is whether the statements are part of an organized campaign to penetrate
the relevant market. If so, element one is satisfied, even if the campaign
is a dismal failure. In this case, the court found that Wexford intended
wide dissemination because it posted the content on the Internet. Round one
to Corizon. The court also found the content referred to a specific service
– providing health care services. The fact that the statement focused on
Corizon’s failings did not change the general topic, which was Corizon’s
services. Round two to Corizon. As to the economic motivation, Wexford
claimed there was none – it was simply trying to assist with the transition
to a new provider. But the court wasn’t buying that story. In its view the
circumstantial evidence – consisting of the content itself and Corizon’s
status as a competitor – proved Wexford’s economic motivation. As the
concept of “content marketing” becomes increasingly popular, the lines
between “editorial” and “advertising” may blur. The point is, just because
you call it a Web site, as opposed to an advertisement doesn’t necessarily
make it so! As Abraham Lincoln said: “How many legs does a dog have if you
call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”
January 4, 2011 Baltimore City Paper
After an unusual behind-the-scenes battle, state officials have chosen a
new company to oversee medical care for Maryland prisoners. Wexford Health
Sources Inc. of Green Tree, Pa., won the $312 million contract in November,
but the incumbent company, Correctional Medical Services (CMS) of St.
Louis, protested the contract award twice, according to a Wexford
spokesperson. “We have been awarded the contract,” Wendelyn
Pekich, Wexford Health Source’s director of marketing
and communications, said in a phone conversation. “Unfortunately it has now
been appealed twice by CMS. It’s within their rights—we understand that.
It’s between them and the state.” State corrections officials and CMS
spokespeople have kept mum about CMS’ multiple challenges to the contract
award, neither returning reporter’s messages nor giving any comment. A
Sept. 17, 2010, letter from the Department of Public Safety and
Correctional Services’ (DPSCS) director of procurement services to CMS thanked
the incumbent company for its bid but said it “was not selected for
contract award.” The state Board of Public Works was originally scheduled
to vote on the new contract on Nov. 3, 2010, but the item was withdrawn. On
Dec. 1, that body, which must approve nearly all state contracts, voted
without discussion to revise the existing contract for one month, at a cost
of $13.9 million. Nearly $11 million of that is going to Wexford, which
currently oversees “utilization management” in the system. The company acts
as a check on the doctors by monitoring who gets what treatment and
sometimes denying certain care. CMS’ award was $340,000. Prison health care
is a controversial—and expensive—part of the Maryland DPSCS’ budget. In the
1990s, the previous provider, Prison Health Systems, had trouble with
regulators. The contract was broken into five pieces—medical care,
utilization management, mental health, dental, and pharmacy—in 2005. That
year CMS took over the medical care component, which is the largest part of
the contract, amid protest by the American Civil Liberties Union. Soon
after that, state auditors found that CMS had not hired enough skilled
professionals to fulfill its contract, and was actually underbilling. A
2007 state audit found “several significant areas of noncompliance,” and a
state auditors’ review of those findings released in April 2010 found that
there were still problems (“Prison Medical Care Has a Ways to Go,” The News
Hole, citypaper.com, April 5, 2010). At that time, the whole system, serving
some 23,000 inmates at a cost of about $150 million per year, had only one
medical doctor. Even inmate deaths could not be properly reviewed.
Mississippi Department
of Corrections
For Jamie Scott, an $11 Robbery in Mississippi May
Carry a Death Sentence, By James Ridgeway and Jean Casella
December 2, 2008 Clarion Ledger
William Morris Byrd Jr. had been in and out of prison most of his life, but
Charlotte Boyd, his sister, said he did not have to die there. Byrd, 53,
died Nov. 21 after what Boyd described as months of wasting away at Central
Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl. While the family is waiting for
the autopsy, Boyd said the initial cause of death is Crohn's Disease, a
chronic but treatable inflammation of the digestive path that she said had
blocked her brother's esophagus. "He literally starved. We watched him
turn into a skeleton," she said. Byrd was serving a lengthy sentence
for rape and was not eligible for parole until 2020. Boyd realizes her
brother may not be a sympathetic figure to most, but after reading a story
last week in The Clarion-Ledger, she said her brother may not be alone.
"If they are doing him that way, they are going to let somebody else
die, too," she said. "Even a dog needs medical attention."
Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said Byrd received
appropriate medical care from the prison. "We provided timely, quality
medical care for the inmate," he said, "as we do for all of our
inmates." Mississippi's per-capita death rate for prisoners has spiked
in recent years. In 2001, the state's death rate was at the national
average, but in 2006 Mississippi's inmate death rate was the second highest
in the nation. In 2007, inmate deaths rose again. The majority of those
deaths are from natural causes, and former inmates and family members of
current inmates say medical care in the state's prison system is
inadequate. Epps blames the higher death rate on several factors, including
an increasingly aged prison population and generally unhealthy lifestyles
that have made the state a leader in medical problems like heart disease
and diabetes. Epps expressed confidence in MDOC's medical contractor,
Pittsburgh, Pa.-based Wexford Health Sources, but the Legislative Joint
Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review last year
released a report criticizing the prison system's response to chronic-care
issues. PEER also found that Wexford's medical staffing was not in
compliance with the terms of its contract with the state. The report found
13 percent staffing shortages at the MDOC prisons in Pearl, Parchman and Leakesville. Officials at MDOC referred
questions about current Wexford staffing levels to the contractor. Wexford
did not return a telephone call Monday but last week referred questions to
MDOC. Senate Corrections Chairman Willie Simmons, D-Cleveland, said the
increase in the prisoner death rate is worth keeping an eye on, but he said
Epps' explanation of the increase is plausible. It's something lawmakers
would want to pay attention to and monitor, "get a little more
information on," he said. "It didn't come across as there was any
kind of serious problem of neglect." But the rising number of deaths
worries people like Diane Rowell, whose hypoglycemic son is in South
Mississippi Correctional Facility serving a short sentence for a parole
violation. She said her son has lost weight and complains of being tired.
"It worries me. I cry a lot about it," she said. "I know
they broke the law, but they are still human beings."
November 23, 2008 Clarion
Ledger
Mississippi's inmate mortality rate was second in the nation in 2006, the
most recent year for which national data are available. And according to a
review of state-level reports, Mississippi's mortality rate rose in 2007.
It's a situation that is raising legal concerns with lawmakers and moral
questions with prison-reform advocates. Mississippi Department of
Corrections officials say the high rate of in-custody deaths is the result
of a number of factors: aging prisoners, drug and alcohol abuse prior to
incarceration and the generally unhealthy lifestyles of Mississippians. But
Patti Barber, executive director of the prison-reform group Mississippi
CURE, said the state does a poor job of looking after the chronic health
needs of inmates. "We are getting tons of letters from inmates, for
instance, who have been diagnosed with diabetes. They are not getting their
(blood) sugar checked daily, as they are supposed to," she said.
"Things just plain aren't getting done." That is what the
Mississippi Legislature's Joint Committee on Performance Evaluation and
Expenditure Review found last December when it released a report on inmate
health care. The PEER report found inmates did not receive timely medical
treatment from MDOC's medical contractor, Pittsburgh-based Wexford Health
Sources, and that Wexford did not meet medical care standards set forth
under its contract with the state. In addition, the PEER committee found
Wexford did not adhere to its own standards in following up on inmates with
chronic health problems. Wexford, which took over inmate care in 2006,
referred all questions to MDOC. Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said he
is satisfied with the contractor's performance. Not maintaining suitable health
care puts the state in greater legal liability, said Rep. Harvey Moss,
D-Corinth, chairman of the PEER committee when the report on inmate health
care was released. "We're trying to keep the inmate care up and keep
the state out of trouble from a lack-of-care standpoint," he said. A
search of the federal court system found more than a dozen open lawsuits
filed by inmates against MDOC on medical issues. A Clarion-Ledger analysis
of inmate death data found the number of prisoners dying increased in 2003
and reaching its peak last year with 78 deaths. The system is projected to
lose another 64 inmates this year, based on the rate of deaths. Mississippi
is second only to Tennessee in per-capita deaths among inmates, based on
the latest national data. Five years earlier, the state ranked 23rd and was
at the national average. "It alarms me very much," Barber said of
the inmate death rate. "We have to find out where this responsibility
is falling between the cracks."
January 14, 2008 Clarion
Ledger
A health-care company contracting with the Mississippi Department of
Corrections has been lax about providing some inmates with timely medical
treatment among other problems, a legislative oversight group says. The
Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure
Review also says the piecemeal contract with Wexford Health Services cost
the state $1.1 million more than it would have for the same company's
turnkey model. The department is facing a shortfall of more than $19
million this year, some of that for overspending in medical costs, and PEER
is recommending the state auditor investigate. But Corrections Commissioner
Chris Epps said the only issue he's had with Wexford concerns the way the
company keeps records. And, he said, PEER's findings don't take into
account the savings the department has seen in medical costs throughout the
years, despite the increasing number of sick and aging inmates it is
holding. Some lawmakers say they're prepared to give the department a
deficit appropriation. "I'm not trying to beat up on PEER," Epps
told The Clarion-Ledger. "All I'm saying is if you don't deal with
this stuff every day, you're not comparing apples to apples." Issued
to lawmakers last month, the PEER report reviews inmate medical expenses in
fiscal year 2007, which began July 1, 2006 - the same day Wexford's
contract with the state began. The Pittsburgh-based company provides
Corrections with only routine care, with the department handling specialty
services and care for inmates referred to hospitals. A turnkey model was
used previously in which another company provided services to all state
institutions except the private prisons the department contracts with. Epps
said the department switched from that model to keep costs down. "The
medical care at the department is better than I've ever seen it, and I've
been here 26 years," Epps said. But the PEER report said the current
agreement is costing the department $1.1 million more than it would with
Wexford's turnkey model, and the department spent $2.8 million more than
its appropriation in fiscal 2007. Spending more money isn't earning the
state better services either, the group says. The report indicates that
during a five-month review period in the same fiscal year, Wexford was
short on staff, and some employees without "proper credentials"
provided medical care to inmates. Also, PEER said many sick-call requests
were not sorted by priority within 24 hours after they were submitted,
which could have delayed treatment. Several deficiencies with the way
medical records are stored were cited in the report as well, including no
separation between physical- and mental-health records, which could affect
the continuum of care. "These are people who have violated laws, but
we are still responsible for their care and that's just the way it
is," said Max Arinder, PEER's executive
director. "We need to get these things remedied, or it could lead to
some legal problems."
New
Mexico Department of Corrections
December 30, 2010 Albuquerque Journal
The family of an inmate who sued the state prison health services provider
and three wardens claiming he failed to get treatment for colon cancer has
settled the lawsuit filed on his behalf. The inmate, Michael Crespin, died
in July 2008 at age 50 while the litigation was pending in U.S. District
Court. The lawsuit continued with a personal representative for the man's
estate. The amount of the settlement is confidential, and neither Crespin's
attorneys nor Wexford Health Sources Inc., a Pittsburgh-based corporation
that describes itself as "the nation's leading innovative correctional
health care company," had any comment on it. A stipulated motion to
dismiss the lawsuit was filed with the court Nov. 29. In court documents,
Wexford denied any wrongdoing, or that any actions by its employees
constituted cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment
to the Constitution, as Crespin had claimed.
July 17, 2009 New
Mexico Independent
A new lawsuit filed in federal court this week accuses a former corrections
department contractor of medial malpractice in
its care for the state’s prisoners, the Albuquerque Journal reports today.
The lawsuit names Wexford Health Sources Inc., Corrections Secretary Joe
Williams, medical professionals and others on behalf of a former Penitentiary
of New Mexico inmate named Martin Valenzuela, 52, who now lives in Texas,
the paper reports. According to the complaint, Valenzuela was serving an
eight-year prison sentence at the Santa Fe prison in 2006 when he developed
a urinary tract problem that led to an emergency hospital admission. The
complaint describes lack of medical attention leading up to a January 2007
surgery, lack of a policy for follow-up care and the subsequent loss of
medical records by the prison and the hospitals, according to the paper.
This is not the only lawsuit against Wexford that alleges improper care.
Others have been filed previously. Here’s an excerpt of the Journal story:
Wexford is also defending against a lawsuit filed by an inmate who claimed
he was essentially lost in the system for purposes of chemotherapy he
needed to treat colon cancer, although he was housed within a few hundred
feet of the Los Lunas prison hospital. Michael Crespin’s medical
malpractice lawsuit was filed in 2008, but he died before his attorneys
could persuade a court to order a videotaped deposition in the case. The
lawsuit, now being pursued by a personal representative on behalf of
Crespin’s estate, has been mired in a fight over what documents must be
produced by Wexford. Lawyers for the estate are demanding documents related
to financial contributions, gifts, meals, entertainment by Wexford company
officers between 2001 and 2008 to Gov. Bill Richardson, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish or any of the political action committees that
might have supported them, including Si Se Puede
PAC and Moving America Forward PAC. The Journal story goes on to list still
other lawsuits that allege improper medical care, including one in which
four women allege sexual assaults, batteries and rapes by former Correctional
Medical Services employee. Another has been filed by the family of a
federal detainee who died while awaiting a deportation hearing in
southeastern New Mexico is alleging medical negligence. Wexford Health
Sources was cited often for problems when it held the contract to provide
health care in New Mexico’s prisons. It eventually lost the contract. A May
2007 audit by the Legislative Finance Committee found gaping holes in the
delivery of care provided by Wexford, including too few physicians,
dentists and optometrists on staff, according to two prison health experts
that visited five facilities in February and March of that year. Wexford
also failed to issue timely reports on 14 inmates who died at correctional
facilities in 2006, the audit found. The Santa Fe Reporter, meanwhile, did
extensive reporting on the health care delivered in New Mexico’s prisons
and first uncovered the lapses.
July 12, 2008 Santa
Fe New Mexican
Back in 2002, when Democrat Bill Richardson was running for his first
term as governor, the company then known as Wackenhut, which ran two
private prisons in New Mexico, donated $1,000 to his Republican opponent,
John Sanchez — and nothing to Richardson. Things have changed. According to
The Institute of Money in State Politics, in 2006 The GEO Group, which is
the name Wackenhut now goes by, contributed $43,750 to Richardson's
re-election campaign. In fact, Richardson, by a wide margin, received more
money from GEO than any other politician nationwide running for state
office in 2006. In contrast, Charlie Crist, governor of Florida, where GEO
is headquartered, received only $1,500 from GEO. (Florida, unlike New
Mexico, has campaign contribution limits.) And it dwarfs the money that the
company contributed to former Gov. Gary Johnson, who first brought
Wackenhut to the state. Johnson's 1998 re-election campaign received a
total of $9,000 from Wackenhut and its chief executive officer, Wayne
Calabrese. But that's not the last of the GEO money Richardson has
received. According to the OpenSecrets.org database, which tracks
contributions to federal races, the corporation's PAC donated $7,000 to
Richardson's presidential campaign (which refunded $2,000 in February after
his campaign folded.) Again, Richardson was GEO's favorite candidate. GEO's
PAC gave only $5,000 each to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, John McCain,
Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee. Richardson's presidential campaign
received another $9,500 from GEO executives. The only other candidate to
receive any money from GEO employees is Barack Obama, who has received a
total of $2,000 — all of which came only after Richardson dropped out of
the race. Because New Mexico's disclosure laws don't require that campaign
contributors identify the companies they work for, it's difficult to identify
GEO employees who have contributed to state races. But two GEO lobbyists
registered in the state contributed. Jorge Dominicis
gave $2,500 to the governor's 2006 re-election, while Diane Houston
contributed $5,000 to Richardson's 2006 race. And while Richardson was
chairman of the Democratic Governor's Association, GEO kicked in $30,000 to
that organization (though it contributed more than $90,000 to the
Republican Governor's Association.) Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos
said last week that campaign contributions have nothing to do with GEO's
presence in the state. Asked whether the governor is proud of being the top
recipient of campaign funds from a private prison company, Gallegos said
the question is "ludicrous and not worth addressing." Richardson
is not the only New Mexico politician to get money from GEO. In fact, only
one state received more GEO campaign money than New Mexico in 2006. That's
the company's home state of Florida, where GEO contributed $395,925. All
but about $20,000 of that went to political parties (with Republicans
getting about 85 percent of the contributions). In 2006, GEO gave $66,450
to New Mexico state candidates other than Richardson. In state races, the
company gave $20,000 to the Democratic primary campaign of attorney general
candidate (and Richardson protégé) Geno Zamora; $10,000 to Gary King, who
beat Zamora in the primary; $2,500 to King's Republican opponent, Jim Bibb;
$8,000 to Lt. Gov. Diane Denish; and $2,500 to
State Auditor Hector Balderas. In New Mexico federal races this year, GEO
has given $2,300 to Ben Ray Luján's 3rd
Congressional District race and $1,000 to 2nd Congressional District
Democratic candidate Harry Teague. The company contributed $2,500 to
Michelle Lujan Grisham's unsuccessful congressional campaign in October,
but the campaign refunded the contribution in March. Grisham, a former
state Health Department secretary, said last week that it wasn't GEO's
prison contracts that concerned her as much as the company's $3.5 million
contract to run the long-troubled Fort Bayard Medical Center, a state
nursing home near Silver City. GEO terminated the contract last month. The
federal government decertified the facility earlier this year after
inspectors found problems with infection control, food preparation and
response to reports of abuse. In 2006, GEO's PAC gave congressional
candidate Patricia Madrid $10,000 and U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman $1,000.
Campaign contributions aren't the only way the company has helped New
Mexico politicians. In 1998, Wackenhut hired then state Senate President
Pro Tem Manny Aragon as a "consultant." Aragon ended his
Wackenhut employment after receiving intense criticism from both parties.
While GEO is the private prison company that gives the most to New Mexico
candidates, it's not the only one. The PAC for Tennessee-based Corrections
Corporation of America — which runs the New Mexico Women's Correctional
Facility in Grants as well as county jails in Cibola and Torrance counties
— gave $5,000 to Richardson's presidential campaign last September. He was
the only Democrat to get money from the CCA, which also gave $5,000 each to
Republicans McCain and Fred Thompson. Richardson also received $1,000 from
Jimmy Turner, a CCA vice president. CCA also gave congressional candidate
Ben Ray Luján $1,000 in March. In 2006, CCA gave
$1,000 to Heather Wilson's 1st Congressional District campaign. In 2006,
CCA gave New Mexico politicians a total of $18,700, $5,000 of which went to
Richardson. Eighty percent of CCA's New Mexico contributions went to Democrats.
Prison services contractors also contribute to politicians in the state.
Aramark Corp., which has a contract with the state to provide food for
prisons, gave $25,000 for Richardson's last race for governor and $30,000
for his running mate, Denish. Last year, the
corporation gave Richardson $5,000 for his presidential race. (Aramark
contributed $6,850 to Clinton.) The Bantry Group, the Pittsburgh-based
parent company of Wexford Health Sources, which the state contracted to
deliver prison medical services, contributed $10,000 to Richardson's
gubernatorial race in 2006. Wexford Health CEO Kevin Halloran gave
Richardson another $10,000 in 2005. Ironically, in 2004 Richardson returned
a $10,000 donation from Bantry to his PAC, Moving America Forward, because,
a spokesman said, the contribution was made while Wexford was being
considered for the state contract. The contribution was returned "to
avoid even the appearance of impropriety," the spokesman said.
Wexford's contract was terminated in 2007 after a Legislative Finance
Committee audit found serious problems with its performance delivering
health care to inmates.
September 26, 2007
Santa Fe Reporter
Over the last year, whistle-blowers have come forward, auditors have
released findings, legislative committees have convened. All concluded that
Wexford Health Sources Inc., the private company that secured an exclusive
contract in 2004 to provide health care to New Mexico inmates, cut corners
at the cost of prisoners’ well being. Last year, SFR published an
award-winning 15-part series focusing on health care professionals’
allegations about the care in the prisons [www.sfreporter.com; “The Wexford
files.” ] Although Wexford’s contract expired on
June 30, 2007, inmates are now filing handwritten civil suits leveled at
Wexford, the State of New Mexico and its private-prison contractor, the GEO
Group. Richard Vespender, an inmate in GEO
Group’s Lea County Correctional Facility, filed suit in the First Judicial
District on July 3, 2007, alleging that Wexford denied him treatment for a
back injury he suffered in 2001 when he slipped on a wet floor at another
prison facility. Vespender, who is representing
himself, says doctors had identified two herniated discs in his lower back
that required surgery, but Wexford would only pay for temporary
pain-killers. On Aug, 15, former Western New Mexico Correctional Facility
inmate Johnny Gallegos filed suit claiming that, in the summer of 2005,
Wexford employees ignored his serious urinary condition. The suit alleges
that Gallegos was treated for constipation, despite regular bowel movements
and, after more than a week of complaints, was finally taken to the
hospital after the prison’s warden discovered him waiting in line at the
medical clinic with his shorts covered in blood. While the plaintiffs have
yet to respond to Gallegos’ complaint, GEO Group and the New Mexico
Department of Corrections have denied culpability in Vespender’s
case, and claim, in their legal response, that they are “without sufficient
knowledge or information” to either admit or deny 32 of Vespender’s
allegations. Most conspicuously, the plaintiffs claim they don’t know
enough about Vespender’s 2006 visits to Dr. Don
Apodaca, who at the time was Wexford’s medical director at the Lea County
prison. Apodaca resigned in November 2006 and previously told SFR: “It came
to the point where I felt uncomfortable with the medical and legal position
I was in. There were individuals who needed health care who weren’t getting
it.” Although NMDOC and GEO now deny sufficient knowledge of both Apodaca’s
diagnosis and that of the specialists at an Albuquerque health clinic, both
were cited in an April 4, 2007 memo from NMDOC denying Vespender’s
final administrative appeal, which was included in Vespender’s
case file. Tia Bland, spokesperson for NMDOC, says this is a moot point: As
of July 1, St. Louis, Mo.-based Correctional Medical Services began
handling prison health care. “If there are inmates who felt that they were
not receiving proper treatment when Wexford was there, there is a process
for them to let us know about that, for them to let the current vendor know
about that and we certainly will address whatever their concern is now,”
she says. Solomon Brown, Gallegos’ attorney, says he’s interviewed dozens
of upset New Mexico inmates, and a new vendor may not be enough. “In my
estimations, there’s nothing but dissatisfaction among the inmates,” Brown
says. “The governor needs to appoint a group to formally look at it, or an
ombudsman to go and talk to these inmates like I do and meet with them.”
February 7, 2007 The
Santa Fe Reporter
At the behest of the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC), two
correctional health experts have launched an extensive audit of the medical
care in New Mexico’s state prisons. SFR has learned that Dr. Steve Spencer
and Dr. B Jaye Anno were hired late last month by the LFC to evaluate the
level of medicine provided to state inmates. Their work is part of a larger
audit the Legislature is conducting of the New Mexico Corrections
Department (NMCD), slated for conclusion this spring. “We needed medical
expertise in our audit, because up until now we haven’t had any,” Manu
Patel, the LFC’s deputy director for audits, says. “This way, it’s not just
us second-guessing the Corrections Department. We can actually get a sense
of what’s working and what isn’t.” Patel says the contract with Spencer and
Anno is worth approximately $21,000. The health care component to the
Corrections audit follows a six-month investigation by SFR into Wexford
Health Sources, the private company that administers medical care to state
inmates [Cover story, Aug. 9, 2006: “Hard Cell?”]. The investigation led to
a request for the audit by the state Legislature’s Courts, Corrections and
Justice Committee last October [Outtakes, Oct. 25, 2006: “Medical Test”].
SFR’s series also compelled Gov. Bill Richardson to terminate the state’s
contract with Wexford in December, a process that will likely take until
June, when the prison medical contract is up for renewal [Outtakes, Dec. 13,
2006: “Wexford Under Fire”]. Regardless of Wexford’s fate, the LFC is
pressing ahead with the audit. “We are looking at this serving a long-term
benefit to the Corrections Department, so that we can all better evaluate
the medical program in the prisons and its services,” Patel says. Spencer,
a former medical director of NMCD, and Anno, who co-founded the National
Commission on Correctional Health Care, started work on Feb. 5, when they
traveled to Lea County Correctional Facility in Hobbs. “We’re going to look
at a number of things when we travel to the sights,” Spencer says. “We’ll
look at the adequacy of staffing, the appropriateness of care, the
timeliness and use of off-site specialists. We’ll review inmate deaths and
whether Corrections is adequately monitoring the contractor.” Moreover, the
medical audit will involve a review of the contract between Wexford and the
Corrections Department, as well as sifting through tuberculosis, HIV and
other medical testing data. Various medical personnel will also be
interviewed throughout the process, Spencer says. Inadequate tuberculosis
testing, chronic staffing shortages and a systemic failure to send inmates
off-site have been among the concerns raised to SFR by former and current
Wexford employees [Outtakes, Oct. 18, 2006: “Corrections Concerns”]. In an
e-mail, Wexford Vice President Elaine Gedman
said, in part, that Wexford plans to cooperate with the audit and is
confident its outcome will be positive. She also said Wexford is
cooperating with NMCD for a smooth transition. NMCD spokeswoman Tia Bland
tells SFR that Corrections is still working on a request for proposal, set
to go out in March, that will kick off the agency’s search for a new
medical provider. “We’re providing [the auditors] with whatever they need,
and whatever the results are, we’ll use that information to our advantage
in working with the next vendor,” Bland says. Bland reiterates NMCD’s
contention that Wexford violated the terms of its contract with the state
because of staffing problems. She says Corrections is still analyzing
whether Wexford broke other contractual stipulations. During the mid-1990s,
Spencer and Anno were hired by the Wyoming Department of Corrections to
conduct medical audits of its prisons. Wexford, which administered health
care for the Wyoming DOC, eventually became embroiled in a US Justice
Department investigation regarding prison health care in that state and
lost its contract. Recalls Anno: “There were a number of problems with
Wexford’s operation in Wyoming.”
January 10, 2007 Santa
Fe Reporter
For Elizabeth Ocean, the poor medical and psychological care at
Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility (SNMCF) in Las Cruces had become
too much to bear. After three years working as a mental health counselor
there, she quit her job last March. Ocean tells SFR that inmates reported
waiting weeks, even months, for medical and dental appointments and to
receive prescription medications. “The guys came to me constantly about the
medical care,” Ocean says. “They were going and putting in requests and
waiting so long to be seen. A lot of times, they were being told there was
nothing wrong with them.” Wexford Health Sources, a private,
Pennsylvania-based company, has handled health care in New Mexico’s state
prisons since July 2004. On the heels of a six-month SFR investigative
series on Wexford, in which many former and current Wexford employees came
forward, Gov. Bill Richardson told the New Mexico Corrections Department
(NMCD) on Dec. 8 to replace Wexford [Outtakes, Dec. 13: “Wexford Under
Fire”]. NMCD spokeswoman Tia Bland says NMCD is moving ahead with the
termination process and that a request for proposals will be crafted by
March. Bland says NMCD has identified at least one area—staffing
shortages—in which Wexford violated the terms of its state contract.
Wexford Vice President Elaine Gedman did not
return phone or e-mail messages. Ocean says the problems in the facility
where she worked were systemic. Earlier this year, she says she wrote
letters to the US Justice Department and the governor’s office, alerting
them to the health care deficiencies. She also wrote of four fellow mental
health counselors whom Ocean alleges were operating without state licenses;
Ocean also filed a complaint last January with the New Mexico Counseling
and Therapy Practice Board. On May 17, Erma Sedillo, NMCD’s deputy
secretary of operations, wrote Ocean on behalf of the governor’s office to
inform her that NMCD was working to obtain the counselors’ temporary
licenses. Sedillo did not return a phone message, but spokeswoman Bland
confirms a past “licensure issue” at NMCD because the department was
unaware of a recent change in existing state regulations that now require
mental health professionals working in prisons to obtain a full state
counseling license. “When we discovered the change, we got all of our
counselors to obtain full licenses,” Bland says. As for Ocean, she is out
of the prisons, but still connected. Ocean is married to an inmate and
former patient at SNMCF, who is incarcerated for murder. She says their
relationship started after he was no longer a patient. Ocean adds: “I saw
with my own eyes all the problems, all the injustices at the prison before
I ever married him.”
December 13, 2006 Santa
Fe Reporter
After two troubled years of administering health care in New Mexico’s
prisons, Wexford Health Sources will lose its multimillion-dollar contract
with the state. Wexford has been the subject of a five-month investigative
series by this paper. Now, SFR has learned that on Dec. 8, Gov. Bill Richardson
ordered the New Mexico Corrections Department (NCMD) to immediately begin
the search for a new health care provider. “The governor has directed the
Corrections Department to develop and implement immediate and long-term
options for improving health care quality at the state’s correctional
facilities,” Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos says. “Those options are
expected to include sanctions and seeking another provider—which basically
means the Corrections Department will be crafting a request for proposal
[RFP] to solicit a new vendor. They’re working out the terms of the RFP now
and will most likely be terminating the contract with Wexford.” Wexford’s
contract expires in June 2007, Gallegos says. SFR has repeatedly and
exclusively published allegations by current and former Wexford employees
regarding inmate care [Cover story, Aug. 9: “Hard Cell?”]. Those accounts
focused on dangerously low medical staffing levels at the nine correctional
facilities where Wexford operates; Wexford’s refusal to grant chronically
ill inmates critical, off-site specialty care; and systemic problems in
administering prescription medicine to inmates. Gallegos says the governor
learned about the problems with Wexford through SFR’s stories. “The
governor had been concerned about the quality of care delivered in the
correctional facilities and directed the Corrections Department to increase
oversight of Wexford,” Gallegos says. “Corrections was doing that, but it
appeared that many of those deficiencies were not being corrected.”
Wexford, which also administers health care in facilities run by the New
Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD), will lose those
operations as well, Gallegos says. Wexford began working in New Mexico in
July 2004, after signing a $27 million contract with NMCD. The
Pittsburgh-based company has also lost contracts in Wyoming and Florida
because of similar concerns over health care. SFR also learned this week
that Dr. Phillip Breen, Wexford’s regional medical director in New Mexico,
has resigned, effective Dec. 31. In addition, a dentist at a state prison
in Hobbs tells SFR that facility is so understaffed that inmates sometimes
wait up to six weeks to receive important dental care. Dr. Ray Puckett, who
has been working as a part-time dentist at Lea County Correctional Facility
(LCCF) in Hobbs for approximately one year, alleges that some inmates are
suffering because the backlog to receive dental treatment is so massive.
“I’ve heard about inmates pulling their own teeth after months and months.
I’ve heard about inmates saying, ‘I just can’t stand it anymore,’” he says.
Puckett says Wexford should have hired a full-time dentist at LCCF because
so many inmates require medical attention to take care of abscesses,
cavities, tooth extractions and other painful dental problems. Puckett
works at the facility only one day a week, during which he typically sees
up to 16 patients. He says that Wexford also has another dentist who will
occasionally work one day a week at the facility. “What we have now is a
poorly run operation. It’s grossly understaffed and disorganized. And it
ends up being unfortunate for the inmates,” Puckett says. Wexford Vice
President Elaine Gedman did not respond to
e-mails and phone calls from SFR. Corrections spokeswoman Tia Bland says
NMCD is not aware of a backlog of dental patients at LCCF, but will look
into it. She adds that Wexford is only required to have a dentist at LCCF
for two days a week. With regard to the governor’s action against Wexford,
Bland says: “It’s a fact. Wexford has not met its contractual obligations
to the Department, and that’s something we can’t ignore. We have to do
something about it. We will be putting a plan in place.” In the coming
year, both Wexford and NMCD are slated for an extensive audit by the
Legislative Finance Committee. The audit was the result of a hearing on
Wexford by the Legislature’s Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee in
October. The hearings also were held in response to reports in this paper
[Outtakes, Oct. 25: “Medical Test”]. It’s now unclear whether the audit
will still take place. As for Puckett, he has considered leaving his post
because of what’s happening at LCCF. A veteran of correctional health care,
he also worked for Wexford’s predecessors, Addus
HealthCare and Correctional Medical Services. In his estimation, both
companies, which operate to make a profit like Wexford, cared more about
the inmates’ physical well-being and were willing to sacrifice dollars to
ensure that medical problems were treated expeditiously. Says Puckett: “It
is my sense that Wexford doesn’t care what sort of facility they run.
Everything is run on a bare-bones budget. They’re in it to make money.” Not
anymore. When asked whether there was any chance at all that Wexford could
remain in its current capacity at NMCD or CYFD, Richardson spokesman
Gallegos responded: “They’re done. The governor’s intention is to replace
Wexford with a new company. We expect to have a new provider in a
reasonable amount of time.”
November 28, 2006 Santa
Fe Reporter
In the latest setback for Wexford Health Sources, a former employee has
slapped the prison health care company with a civil lawsuit alleging racial
discrimination. The suit, filed Oct. 25 in US District Court in
Albuquerque, alleges that former health services administrator Don Douglas
was fired by Wexford last October because he is black. Moreover, the suit
alleges that sick and injured inmates at Lea County Correctional Facility
in Hobbs, where Douglas worked, received poor treatment and that the facility
lacked critical medical staff. Wexford, which administers health care in
New Mexico’s prisons, has been the subject of a four-month SFR
investigation [Cover story, Aug. 9: “Hard Cell?”]. As a result, the Courts,
Corrections and Justice Committee held a hearing last month, and the
Legislative Finance Committee is slated to audit Wexford and the New Mexico
Corrections Department [Outtakes, Nov. 8: “Prison Audit Ahead”]. The
allegations in Douglas’ lawsuit echo many of the concerns from employees
who have talked to SFR. Specifically, it charges that even though Douglas
alerted a Wexford corporate administrator about medical and staffing
problems, the company did not respond. Instead, according to the lawsuit,
Douglas’ job was audited and he was found negligent, despite no prior
problems and a record of exemplary job evaluations. On Oct. 10, 2005,
Douglas was fired and replaced by a white woman, the lawsuit says. “Wexford
did not provide critical health care in a timely manner, and I called
attention to that,” Douglas tells SFR. “Inmates have a civil right as
incarcerated American citizens to be afforded adequate health care. But
that service is not being provided, and Wexford is neglecting inmates.”
Douglas began working at Wexford in July 2004, but also worked for its
predecessor, Addus. Shortly after his firing,
Douglas filed a complaint with the US Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC). A June 5 letter from the EEOC’s Albuquerque office says
the agency found reasonable cause to believe Douglas “was terminated
because of his race.” When queried by SFR, Wexford Vice President Elaine Gedman wrote in a Nov. 27 e-mail that Wexford is
withholding comment until the forthcoming audit is complete and referred to
14 prior successful audits of Wexford. Corrections spokeswoman Tia Bland
also would not comment on the lawsuit and noted that NMCD does not oversee
Wexford personnel matters. Says Deshonda Charles
Tackett, Douglas’ lawyer: “This is an important case. Mr. Douglas should
not have to suffer racial discrimination in an effort to provide inmates
with proper health care.”
November 22, 2006 Santa
Fe Reporter
The medical director of a state prison in Hobbs has stepped down from
his post less than a month after a legislative committee requested an audit
of the corrections health care in the state. Dr. Don Apodaca, medical
director of Lea County Correctional Facility (LCCF), turned in his
resignation on Nov. 6 due to concerns that inmates there are not receiving
sufficient access to health care. According to Apodaca, sick inmates are
routinely denied off-site visits to medical specialists and sometimes have
to wait months to receive critical prescription drugs. Apodaca blames the
policies of Wexford Health Sources, the private company that contracts with
the state to provide medicine in New Mexico’s prisons, for these alleged
problems. Wexford has been the subject of a four-month SFR investigation,
during which a growing number of former and current employees have
contended that Wexford is more concerned with saving money than providing
adequate health care, and that inmates suffer as a result. On Oct. 24, the
Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) tentatively approved an audit that will
assess Wexford’s contract with the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD)
and also evaluate the quality of health care rendered to inmates [Outtakes,
Nov. 8: “Prison Audit Ahead”]. LCCF’s medical director since January 2006,
Apodaca is one of the highest-ranking ex-Wexford employees to come forward
thus far. His allegations of Wexford’s denials of off-site care and the
delays in obtaining prescription drugs echo those raised by other former
and current employees during the course of reporting for this series [Cover
story, Aug. 9: “Hard Cell?”]. Specifically, Apodaca says he personally
evaluated inmates who needed off-site, specialty care, but that Wexford
consistently denied his referrals. Apodaca cites the cases of an inmate who
needed an MRI, another inmate who suffered from a hernia and a third inmate
who had a cartilage tear in his knee as instances in which inmates were
denied off-site care for significant periods of time against his
recommendations. When inmates are actually cleared for off-site care in
Albuquerque, they are transported in full shackles without access to a bathroom
for the six- to seven-hour trip, Apodaca says. “Inmates told me they aren’t
allowed to go to the bathroom and ended up soiling themselves,” he says.
“The trip is so bad they end up refusing to go even when we get the
off-site visits approved.” When it comes to prescription drugs, there also
are significant delays, Apodaca says. Inmates sometimes wait weeks or even
months for medicine used for heart and blood pressure conditions, even
though Apodaca says he would write orders for those medicines repeatedly.
“Wexford was not providing timely treatment and diagnoses of inmates,” he
says. “There were tragic cases where patients slipped through the cracks,
were not seen for inordinately long times and suffered serious or fatal
consequences.” Apodaca says he began documenting the medical problems at
the facility in March. After detailing in writing the cases of 40 to 50
patients whom he felt had not received proper clinical care, Apodaca says
he alerted Dr. Phillip Breen, Wexford’s regional medical director, and
Cliff Phillips, Wexford’s regional health services administrator, through
memos, e-mails and phone calls. In addition, Apodaca says he alerted
Wexford’s corporate office in Pittsburgh. Neither Breen nor Phillips
returned phone messages left by SFR. Apodaca says he also informed Devendra
Singh, NMCD’s quality assurance manager for health services. According to
Apodaca, Singh assured him that he would require Wexford to look into the
matter, but Apodaca says he never heard a final response. “Wexford was simply
not receptive to any of the information I was sending them, and I became
exasperated,” he says. “It came to the point where I felt uncomfortable
with the medical and legal position I was in. There were individuals who
needed health care who weren’t getting it.” Singh referred all questions to
NMCD spokeswoman Tia Bland; Bland responded to SFR in a Nov. 20 e-mail: “If
Don Apodaca has information involving specific incidents, we will be happy
to look into the situation. Otherwise, we will
wait for the LFC’s audit results, review them and take it from there.”
Wexford Vice President Elaine Gedman would not
comment specifically on Apodaca’s allegations. In a Nov. 20 e-mail to SFR,
she wrote that Wexford will cooperate with the Legislature’s audit and is
confident the outcome will be similar to the 14 independent audits
performed since May 2005 by national correctional organizations. “Wexford
is proud of the service we have provided to the Corrections Department as
documented in these independent audits and looks forward to continuing to
provide high quality health care services in New Mexico,” Gedman writes. Members of the Legislature’s Courts,
Corrections and Justice Committee, which requested the forthcoming audit,
toured LCCF on Oct. 19 and were told by both Wexford and NMCD officials
that there were no health care problems at the facility. On the same tour,
however, committee members heard firsthand accounts from inmates who
complained they couldn’t get treatment when they became sick [Outtakes,
Oct. 25: “Medical Test”]. That visit, along with Apodaca’s accounts, calls
into question Wexford’s and NMCD’s accounts, State Sen. Cisco McSorley,
D-Bernalillo, says. “We were told on our tour that nothing was wrong. And
now to hear that there is a claim that Wexford and the Corrections
Department might have known about this makes it seem like this information
was knowingly covered up,” McSorley, co-chairman of the committee, says.
“We can’t trust what’s being told to us. The situation may require
independent oversight far beyond what we have. This should be the biggest
story in the state right now.”
November 8, 2006 Santa
Fe Reporter
The New Mexico State Legislature is one step closer to an audit of Wexford
Health Sources, the private company that administers health care in New
Mexico’s prisons. On Oct. 24, the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC)
tentatively approved the audit, which will evaluate Wexford’s contract with
the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) and also assess the quality of
health care administered to inmates. The request for a review of Wexford
originated with the state Legislature’s Courts, Corrections and Justice
Committee, which voted unanimously on Oct. 20 to recommend the audit after
a hearing on prison health care in Hobbs [Outtakes, Oct. 25: “Medical
Test”]. A subsequent Oct. 30 letter sent to the LFC by committee
co-chairmen Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Doña Ana, and Sen. Cisco McSorley,
D-Bernalillo, refers to “serious complaints raised by present and former
employees” of Wexford. The letter cites this newspaper’s reportage of the
situation and notes that on a recent tour of Lea County Correctional
Facility in Hobbs, “committee members heard numerous concerns from inmates
about medical problems not being addressed.” It also refers to confidential
statements Wexford employees provided to the committee that were then
turned over to the LFC. The decision to examine Wexford and NMCD comes on
the coattails of months of reports that state inmates are suffering behind
bars due to inadequate medical services, documented in an ongoing,
investigative series by SFR. Over the past three months, former and current
employees have alleged staffing shortages as well as problems with the
dispensation of prescription drugs and the amount of time sick inmates are
forced to wait before receiving urgent care [Cover story, Aug. 9: “Hard
Cell?”]. The timing, Manu Patel, the LFC’s deputy director for audits,
says, is ideal, because the LFC already planned to initiate a comprehensive
audit of NMCD, the first in recent history. Regarding the medical component
of the audit, Patel says: “We will be looking at how cost-effective Wexford
has been. Also, we will be looking at the quality of care, how long inmates
have to wait to receive care and what [Wexford’s] services are like.” Patel
says the LFC plans to contract with medical professionals to help evaluate
inmates’ care. As per a request from the Courts, Corrections and Justice
Committee, current Wexford employees will be given a chance to participate
in the audit anonymously. The audit’s specifics require final approval from
the LFC in December; the committee will likely take up to six months to
generate a report, according to Patel. In a Nov. 6 e-mail to SFR, Wexford
Vice President Elaine Gedman cites 14 successful,
independent audits performed of Wexford in New Mexico since May 2005.
“Wexford is proud of the service we have provided to the Corrections
Department as documented in these independent audits and looks forward to
continuing high quality health care services in New Mexico,” Gedman writes. NMCD spokeswoman Tia Bland echoes Gedman: “We welcome the audit and plan on cooperating
any way we can,” she says. Meanwhile, former employees continue to come
forward. Kathryn Hamilton, an ex-NMCD mental health counselor, says she
worked alongside Wexford staff at the Pen for two months, shortly after the
company took the reins in New Mexico in July 2004. Hamilton alleges that
mentally ill inmates were cut off psychotropic medicine for cheaper, less
effective drugs and that inmates waited too long to have prescriptions
renewed and suffered severe behavioral withdrawals as a result. Hamilton,
who had worked at the Pen since April 2002, says she encountered the same
sorts of problems under Addus, Wexford’s
predecessor, but quit shortly after Wexford’s takeover because the
situation wasn’t improving. “They would stop meds, give inmates the wrong
meds or refuse to purchase meds that were not on their formulary, even if
they were prescribed by a doctor,” Hamilton says. “I felt angry, sometimes
helpless, although I always tried to speak with administrators to help the
inmates.” Hamilton married a state inmate by proxy last month, after
continuing a correspondence with him following her tenure at the Pen.
Hamilton says she did not serve as a counselor to the inmate, Anthony
Hamilton, but met him after helping conduct a series of mental health
evaluations. Hamilton has been a licensed master social worker under her
maiden name since 2000 (according to the New Mexico Board of Social Work Examiners).
She emphasizes that her relationship with her husband did not begin until
after she left the Corrections Department. According to Hamilton, her
husband, still incarcerated at the Pen for aggravated assault, recently
contracted methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a serious
staph infection. In a previous story, four current Wexford employees
specifically mentioned MRSA as a concern to SFR because they allege Wexford
does not supply proper protective equipment for staff treating infectious
diseases like MRSA [Outtakes, Oct. 18: “Corrections Concerns”]. Wexford
Vice President Gedman did not address Hamilton’s
claims when queried by SFR. Corrections spokeswoman Bland also says she
can’t comment on Hamilton’s allegations because she had not spoken with
Hamilton’s supervisor at the time of her employment. Says Hamilton: “I
initially called the newspaper as the concerned wife of an inmate, not as a
former therapist. With all the stories the Reporter has done, I wanted to
come forward with what I had seen at the Pen.”
October 25, 2006 Santa
Fe Reporter
Following months of reports that state inmates are suffering behind
bars due to deficient medical services, a state legislative committee has
requested a special audit of health care in New Mexico’s state prisons.
During an Oct. 20 hearing at New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs, members of
the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee voted unanimously to ask for
the audit, which will focus on Wexford. Last week’s hearing resulted in a
requested audit of New Mexico’s prison health care. (Photo by Dan Frosch.).
Health Sources, the private company that contracts with the New Mexico
Corrections Department (NMCD). The company’s operation in New Mexico has
been the subject of a three-month investigative series by SFR, during which
former and current Wexford employees have come forward with allegations of
problematic health services for inmates [Cover Story, Aug. 9: “Hard
Cell?”]. As a result of the series, the Courts, Corrections and Justice
Committee decided to address the issue during a regularly scheduled hearing
in Hobbs [Outtakes, Sept. 13: “Checkup”]. Norbert Sanchez, a nurse suspended
by Wexford in September after an alleged dispute with health
administrators, spoke at the hearing about problems he witnessed at Central
New Mexico Correctional Facility in Los Lunas. Sanchez recalled witnessing
a wheelchair-bound inmate who sat in his own feces for hours and a sick
inmate who missed critical doses of medicine for congestive heart failure.
Sanchez also expressed concerns that echo those raised previously to SFR by
other former and current Wexford staff: a systemic lack of medical supplies,
failure to properly dole out prescription drugs and reluctance to send sick
inmates off-site for specialized treatment. Though he was the only former
Wexford employee in attendance, Sanchez referred legislators to a packet
he’d disseminated with testimony from current Wexford employees. Those
employees feared retaliation if they came forward, Sanchez said. ACLU New
Mexico staff attorney George Bach testified that his organization has been
hearing similar concerns from Wexford employees and that many are, indeed,
afraid to go public. “These employees are so passionate about this issue
that if you called them to testify, I’m certain they would do it,” Bach
said. Both NMCD and Wexford refuted Sanchez’ and Bach’s allegations.
Devendra Singh, NMCD’s quality assurance manager for health services,
hashed through the nationally approved correctional health care standards
to which he said the Corrections Department adheres. He also pointed to the
strict auditing process he said NMCD uses to monitor Wexford. “We go for
auditing for every inch of every aspect of care,” Singh said. Wexford
President and CEO Mark Hale said his Pennsylvania-based company is subject
to more stringent oversight in New Mexico than in any other state where it
operates. “If inmates need health care, they get it,” Hale, who categorized
the attacks on Wexford as deriving from disgruntled ex-employees, said. But
Singh’s and Hale’s assurances were not enough for the legislators on hand,
who peppered the two with questions. At one point, State Rep. Peter Wirth,
D-Santa Fe, referred to a recent SFR story in which a current Wexford
employee at Central decried treatment of inmates as inhumane and noted that
never before had the employee seen such deficiencies in health care
[Outtakes, Oct. 18: “Corrections Concerns”]. “That’s pretty darn scary to
me,” Wirth said of the allegation. Committee co-chairman and State Rep.
Joseph Cervantes, D-Doña Ana, questioned Singh’s assertion that medical
complaints from inmates are rare and noted that on a tour of Lea County
Correctional Facility the previous night, legislators had heard numerous
inmate concerns about medical problems. Co-chairman Sen. Cisco McSorley,
D-Bernalillo, said on the same tour he’d seen an inmate suffering from a
visible cystic infection. The cyst should have easily been identified
through only a “cursory” medical evaluation, McSorley said. Corrections
Secretary Joe Williams said his agency welcomes a special audit of health
care in the prisons. Legislators agreed that such an audit, under the aegis
of the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC), should be conducted by an
independent third party and include accounts from current Wexford employees
who could remain anonymous. LFC Chairman Lucky Varela, D-Santa Fe, says he
has not yet received an official request from the Courts, Corrections and
Justice Committee, but will be keeping an eye out. “We will seriously
consider looking at the Corrections component to see what type of health
care and what type of contracts are being approved by the Corrections
Department,” Varela says. Indeed, for Peter Wirth, the logical next step is
an audit that examines Wexford’s services and NMCD’s oversight and that
allows current employees to speak freely. Says Wirth: “We really need to
hear more from these folks. Obviously, we’ve begun a dialogue here, and we
don’t want to short-change it.”
October 18, 2006 Santa
Fe Reporter
Current prison health workers say they fear retaliation if they speak
out. Just days before state legislators convene a hearing on correctional health
care in New Mexico, a group of medical employees in the state prison system
have come to SFR with allegations about how inmates are treated. All four
requested anonymity because they say they fear retaliation from Wexford
Health Sources—the private company that administers health care in the
prisons—if their identities are revealed. The employees currently work at
Central New Mexico Correctional Facility. They allege, among other things,
that chronically ill inmates are forced to lie in their own feces for
hours, are taken off vital medicine to save money and often wait months
before receiving treatment for urgent medical conditions. Moreover, the
employees say conditions at the facility are unsanitary. “In my entire
career, I’ve never seen this sort of stuff happening,” one employee says.
“These inmates are not being treated humanely. They don’t live in sanitary
conditions. They live in pain.” Wexford Vice President Elaine Gedman denies all the employees’ allegations in an
e-mail response to SFR. Corrections spokeswoman Tia Bland says the
department is unaware of these allegations and that “none of these issues
have surfaced during our regular auditing process.” The employees’
allegations come on the heels of a series of stories by SFR, in which several
former Wexford employees have publicly come forward with similar charges
[Cover Story, Aug. 9: “Hard Cell?”]. As a result of the stories, the state
Legislature’s Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee will hold a hearing
on Oct. 20 in Hobbs to discuss the matter [Outtakes, Sept. 13: “Checkup”].
Wexford and the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD), which oversees
the Pennsylvania-based company, have categorically denied charges that
inmates are being denied proper health care. These latest allegations are
the first to come from current employees of Wexford. The employees describe
an environment where medical staff must purchase their own wipes for
incontinent patients because they say Wexford administrators say there’s no
money for supplies. They say there’s a shortage of oxygen tanks and
nebulizer machines (for asthma patients) and also scant protective
equipment for those staff treating infectious diseases. Gedman
says, “Wexford is unaware of any shortage in medical supplies. Extra oxygen
bottles and nebulizers are always on hand and ready for any emergency use.
The oxygen bottles are inventoried daily as part of our emergency response
requirement.” The employees also allege that chronically ill inmates
sometimes wait what they say is too long to be taken off-site for specialty
care. Gedman says this also is false and that
Wexford “strongly encourages all of our providers to refer patients for
necessary evaluation and treatment, off-site when necessary, as soon as
problems are identified that need specialty referral.” All four employees
say their complaints to Wexford administrators about the lack of supplies
and treatment of inmates have been ignored, and all believe coming forward
publicly will cost them their jobs. Gedman says
this concern is unfounded because “Wexford encourages an open-door policy
for all employees to bring issues to the attention of management so that
they can be investigated and acted upon as appropriate.” Bland says
Corrections staff are “visible and accessible in the prisons. If any of
Wexford’s staff would like to speak with us concerning these allegations,
we welcome the information and will certainly look into the matter.” As for
the legislative hearing, State Rep. Joseph Cervantes, R-Doña Ana,
co-chairman of the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee, says he hopes
some of these Wexford critics will show up in Hobbs. And he says further
hearings are a possibility. “I hope there is a full airing of the issues. I
would like to learn that the Corrections Department is working to resolve
all of this, but if they haven’t, I expect to make deadlines for them so we
can expect adequate progress,” Cervantes says. “We’d still like to protect
the anonymity and bring to light any allegations and complaints.” Cervantes
also says he wants to introduce legislation during the next session to
protect whistle-blowers. Ken Kopczynski, executive director of the Private
Corrections Institute watchdog group in Florida, says the Legislature must
do everything it can to safeguard current Wexford employees against
retaliation. “The Legislature is the ultimate authority, and they need to
put pressure on the Corrections Department to find out what the hell is
going on. They also need to protect these employees so they can come
forward and testify about their specific experiences,” Kopczynski says.
“And if there are allegations of civil rights abuse, which is what it
sounds like, then the Justice Department needs to come in.”
September 13, 2006
Santa Fe Reporter
Concerns about prison health care reported exclusively by the Santa Fe
Reporter will be discussed by a legislative committee next month. The
Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee will gather in Hobbs on Oct. 19
and 20 for a regularly scheduled hearing and discuss, among other items,
the health care provided to state inmates by Wexford Health Sources.
Wexford, a private, Pennsylvania-based company, has come under fire from
ex-employees who allege that inmates receive dangerously substandard health
care [Cover Story, Aug. 9: “Hard Cell?”]. State Rep. Joseph Cervantes,
D-Doña Ana, co-chairman of the committee, says those concerns prompted the
Legislature to take action. “The issues [SFR] has raised have not come
before our committee recently. Inevitably, you get a perception that the
management wants you to see, but we want to go beyond that,” Cervantes
says. Cervantes expects representatives from Wexford and the New Mexico
Corrections Department (NMCD) to answer questions at the meetings. He also
encouraged all those who have concerns about Wexford’s health care in the
prisons to come forward. “We need these individuals to not only participate
in the public portion of the meetings but consider presenting evidence and
testimony to the committee,” Cervantes says. State Sen. Cisco McSorley,
D-Bernalillo, co-chairman of the committee, echoes his counterpart’s
sentiment. “With the increasing outcry of health care in the prisons, Joe
and I decided this was an issue that needs to be discussed,” McSorley says.
Meanwhile, SFR recently obtained an Aug. 29 memo from Wexford that directs
staff not to speak with this paper. The memo is from J Chavez, identified
as director of nursing at Central New Mexico Correctional Facility in Los
Lunas. “It is important that you either contact the Pittsburgh office or
myself if this reporter contacts you,” the memo states. “Please keep in
mind that all of you have read and signed the business code of conduct…”
The memo also cites the company’s media relations policy, which prohibits
employees from speaking with the news media on matters relating to Wexford.
August 30, 2006 Santa
Fe Reporter
A Santa Fe dentist and his assistant say they quit their jobs at the
Penitentiary of New Mexico in 2004 because of concerns that state inmates
were not receiving adequate dental care. Dr. Norton Bicoll
and Sharon Daily left their employment at Wexford Health Sources, which
handles health care in nine New Mexico correctional facilities, because the
company ordered them to cut their hours for inmates in half, they say. Bicoll and Daily’s problems with Wexford follow a
number of serious allegations levied by six ex-Wexford employees that also
question the level of health care inmates are receiving [Cover story, Aug.
9: “Hard Cell?”]. Last week, SFR also reported that two Albuquerque
psychiatrists have sued Lovelace Health Systems for firing them after they
refused to participate in a proposed contract with Wexford. The contract
would have called for the psychiatrists to provide substandard treatment to
state inmates, the lawsuit alleges [Outtakes, Aug. 23: “Unhealthy
Proposal”]. These latest assertions about Wexford appear to be part of a
growing chorus of criticism of the company and its treatment of inmates.
Wexford Vice President Elaine Gedman, who has
responded previously to questions regarding the company, did not respond to
repeated requests for comment for this story. But Bicoll
and Daily’s issues with Wexford relate to the company’s staffing shortages
in New Mexico, one of the company’s most pervasive problems, according to
ex-employees. While both NMCD and Wexford have consistently played down
such shortages, according to Wexford’s own Web site, there are currently 47
vacancies for medical personnel in New Mexico. That number comprises close
to half of the 117 total positions Wexford, the nation’s third largest
private correctional health care company, is currently advertising for.
Such vacancies not only include a range of nursing positions but also
critical, high ranking administrative posts. According to the Web site,
Wexford is looking to hire a director of nursing and medical director at
the New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility in Grants. The medical
director position is also open at Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility
in Las Cruces and Lea County Correctional Facility in Hobbs. The
Penitentiary of New Mexico needs a director of nursing. Ken Kopczynski,
executive director of the Private Corrections Institute watchdog group in
Florida, says charges of compromised prison health care in New Mexico
warrant federal involvement. “It would be good to get the Department of
Justice involved if there are allegations of lack of care on behalf of the
inmates,” he says. “The New Mexico Corrections Department and the
Legislature can’t hide their heads in the sand and say they didn’t know
about these problems if there’s ever a lawsuit. The inmates are ultimately
the responsibility of the state, and you can’t contract that away.”
August 25, 2006 The
New Mexican
Santa Fe County has interviewed four people who applied to be the new jail
administrator. One high-profile candidate, however, took her name out of
the hat just before interviews were slated to begin Thursday. Ann Casey, a
lobbyist and Illinois jail official embroiled in controversy over her
relationship with state Corrections Secretary Joe Williams, had applied for
the job along with five others. Casey canceled her interview Thursday and
said she no longer wanted to be considered for the job, according to
Assistant County Attorney Carolyn Glick. Casey was in the news in New
Mexico when the state put Williams on unpaid leave and launched an
investigation. Officials looked into his relationship with the woman,
including use of his work cell phone and other expenses after the
Albuquerque Journal reported billing records for his state cell phone showed
644 calls between the two over five months. Williams returned to work and
is on probation following what a governor's aide called "a lapse in
judgment." Illinois officials also looked into the matter, but Casey
remains in her position of assistant warden of programs at the Centralia
Correctional Center, said department spokesman Derek Schnapp. Casey was not
available for comment.
August 14, 2006 In
These Times
While New Mexico’s landscape may make the state the Land of
Enchantment, its rapidly growing rates of incarceration have been utterly
disenchanting. What’s worse, New Mexico is at the top of the nation’s list
for privatizing prisons; nearly one-half of the state’s prisons and jails
are run by corporations. Supposedly, states turn to private companies to
cope better with chronic overcrowding and for low-cost management. However,
a closer look suggests a different rationale. A recent report from the
Montana-based Institute on Money in State Politics reveals that during the
2002 and 2004 election cycles, private prison companies, directors,
executives and lobbyists gave $3.3 million to candidates and state
political parties across 44 states. According to Edwin Bender, executive
director of the Institute on Money in State Politics, private prison companies
strongly favor giving to states with the toughest sentencing laws—in
essence, the ones that are more likely to come up with the bodies to fill
prison beds. Those states, adds Bender, are also the ones most likely to
have passed “three-strikes” laws. Those laws, first passed by Washington
state voters in 1993 and then California voters in 1994, quickly swept the
nation. They were largely based on “cookie-cutter legislation” pushed by
the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), some of whose members
come from the ranks of private prison companies. Florida leads the pack in
terms of private prison dollars, with its candidates and political parties
receiving almost 20 percent of their total contributions from private
prison companies and their affiliates. Florida already has five privately
owned and operated prisons, with a sixth on the way. It’s also privatized
the bulk of its juvenile detention system. Texas and New Jersey are close
behind. But in Florida, some of the influence peddling finally seems to be
backfiring. Florida State Corrections Secretary James McDonough alarmed
private prison companies with a comment during an Aug. 2 morning call-in
radio show. “I actually think the state is better at running the prisons,”
McDonough told an interviewer. His comments followed an internal audit last
year by the state’s Department of Management Services, which demonstrated
that Florida overpaid private prison operators by $1.3 million. Things may
no longer be quite as sunny as they once were in Florida for the likes of
Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the
former Wackenhut, now known as the GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla. But with a
little bit of spiel-tinkering—and a shift of attention to other states—the
prison privatizers are likely to keep going. The key shift, Bender
explains, is that “the prison industry has gone from a
we-can-save-you-money pitch to an economic-development model pitch.” In
other words, says Bender, “you need [their] prisons for jobs.” If political
donations are any measure, economically challenged and poverty-stricken
states like New Mexico are a great target. In this campaign cycle,
Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson has already received more contributions
from a private prison company than any other politician campaigning for
state office in the United States. The Institute of Money in State
Politics, which traced the donations, reported that GEO has contributed
$42,750 to Richardson since 2005—and another $8,000 to his running mate,
Lt. Gov. Diane Denish. Another $30,000 went from
GEO to the Richardson-headed Democratic Governors Association this past
March. Richardson’s PAC, Moving America Forward, was another prominent
recipient of GEO donations. Now, its former head, prominent state capitol
lobbyist Joe Velasquez, is a registered lobbyist for GEO Care Inc., a
healthcare subsidiary that runs a hospital in New Mexico. But don’t get the
idea that GEO has any particular love for Democrats: $95,000 from the
corporation went to the Republican Governors Association last year alone.
What companies like GEO do love are the millions of dollars rolling in from
lucrative New Mexico contracts to run the Lea County Correctional Facility
(operating budget: $25 million/year), and the Guadalupe County Correctional
Facility ($13 million/year), among others. CCA also owns and operates the
state’s only women’s facility in Grants ($11 million per year). To make
sure that those dollars keep flowing, GEO and CCA have perfected the art of
the “very tight revolving door,” says Bender, which involves snapping up
former corrections administrators, PAC lobbyists and state officials to
serve as consultants to private prison companies. In fact, the current New
Mexico Corrections Department Secretary Joe Williams was once on GEO’s payroll
as their warden of the Lea County Correctional Facility. Earlier this year,
Williams was placed on unpaid administrative leave after accusations
surfaced that he spent state travel and phone funds to pursue a very close
relationship with Ann Casey. Casey is a registered lobbyist in New Mexico
for Wexford Health Sources, which provides health care for prisoners at
Grants, and Aramark, which provides most of the state’s inmate meals. In
her non-lobbying hours, it turns out that Casey is also an assistant warden
at a state prison in Centralia, Ill. It appears that even for a prison
industry enchanted by public-private partnership, Williams and Casey may
have gone too far.
May 31, 2006 New
Mexican
A state prison contractor involved in the investigation of a relationship
between Corrections Secretary Joe Williams and a lobbyist contributed
$10,000 to Gov. Bill Richardson's re-election campaign. The
political-action committee for Aramark -- a Philadelphia-based company that
makes millions of dollars a year to feed New Mexico inmates -- contributed
to Richardson's campaign in May 2005, according to Richardson's most recent
campaign-finance report. That was about a year after Aramark renewed its
contract with the state Corrections Department. Aramark also has been generous
to the state Democratic Party, contributing $10,000 in 2004, and the
Democratic Governors Association, which Richardson chairs. The company
contributed a total of $15,000 to the DGA in 2004 and another $15,000 in
2005, according to reports filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Aramark
provides food service to more than 475 correctional institutions in North
America. The corporation also has food-service contracts in colleges,
hospitals, convention centers and stadiums. Richardson spokesman Pahl Shipley referred questions about the campaign
donation to Richardson's campaign manager, Amanda Cooper, who couldn't be
reached for comment. The Governor's Office announced this week that
Williams is being put on administrative leave while the state Personnel
Office investigates his relationship with Ann E. Casey, who registered as a
lobbyist for Aramark and Wexford Health Services, which provides health
care to New Mexico inmates. Casey is an assistant warden at an Illinois
prison. A copyrighted story in the Albuquerque Journal said Williams'
state-issued cell-phone records show 644 calls between Williams and Casey
between Sept. 24, 2005, and Feb. 23. According to that report, Casey was
hired as a consultant by Aramark in 2005, but that contract has since been
terminated. Aramark's $5.4 million contract ends in July. The Secretary of
State Office's Lobbyist Index lists Casey as a lobbyist for Wexford, though
the Journal report quotes a Wexford official saying the company never hired
her. In 2004, a $10,000 contribution to a Richardson political committee
from Wexford's parent company caused a stir and later was returned to the
Pittsburgh company. The Bantry Group made the contribution to Richardson's
Moving America Forward PAC in April 2004. This was during a bidding process
just a month after the Corrections Department requested proposals for a
contract to provide health care and psychiatric services to inmates. That
contract potentially is worth more than $100 million, The Associated Press
reported. In August 2004, a Richardson spokesman said the money would be
returned "to avoid even the appearance of impropriety."
May 30, 2006 AP
Gov. Bill Richardson has put Corrections Secretary Joe Williams on
unpaid leave while the secretary's recent actions are investigated.
Richardson said the review will focus on Williams' use of a state-issued
cell phone, a state-funded trip that included some personal travel and his
relationship with a lobbyist. "Gov. Richardson wants a thorough
investigation to examine the secretary's actions and determine if anything
improper occurred," said James Jimenez, Richardson's chief of staff.
"The governor sets a very high ethical standard for his administration
and will not tolerate any level of abuse of authority or public trust."
A spokeswoman for the Corrections Department said Williams was unavailable
for comment. State Personnel Director Sandra Perez will conduct the
investigation through her office, Jimenez said. Williams will be on unpaid
leave until June 9, the day Perez's office is to report to the governor.
The Albuquerque Journal reported Sunday that Williams spent about 91 hours
on his state-issued cell phone talking with Ann Casey, an assistant warden
at a state prison in Centralia, Ill. The calls between the two phones were placed
between Sept. 24, 2005, and Feb. 23, 2006. Casey registered as a lobbyist
in 2005 for two companies that have contracts with New Mexico to provide
health care and meals to prisoners. Williams described his relationship
with Casey as a friendship and said he doesn't give preferential treatment
to anybody. Richardson also is questioning a trip Williams took to
Nashville on the state's dollar. In January, Williams attended a conference
of the American Correctional Association. His travel records show he added
a St. Louis leg to the trip, which he said was personal. A 30-mile drive
from the St. Louis airport would land Williams at an address in O'Falcon, Ill., which Casey listed on lobbyist
registration forms. Records show Williams wrote a check to his department
in January for $266, the cost of adding the St. Louis trip. While on the
trip, Williams and Casey accepted a dinner invitation from a company that
operates a state prison in Santa Rosa, according to Williams' e-mail
records. A billing statement for a hotel stay during the trip also lists
two people in his party, but Williams would not say who the second person
was. Richardson appointed Williams, a former warden at the Lea County
Correctional Facility in Hobbs and former warden at two state prisons, as
corrections secretary in 2003.
Oaks
Correctional Facility, Eastlake, Michigan
December 1, 2004 Lundington
Daily News
A former Oaks Correctional
Facility physician pleaded guilty to four counts of tax evasion with a
total tax liability of $139,794. Dr. Daniel Smalley, 56, formerly of
Wellston now of Ludington, is scheduled for sentencing at 1:30 p.m. Feb.
22, 2005 at the Lansing Federal Building. On June 28, 2004,
Smalley was arrested at the Baltimore Washington International Airport, in
Baltimore, Maryland, after returning from Ghana, West Africa. According to
a complaint filed in June 2004, during the years 1997 through 2002, Smalley
was employed at both the Baraga Correctional Facility, Baraga, and at the
Oaks Correctional Facility, Eastlake, working for several different
companies, including Genesys Integrated Group,
Wexford Health Services, the State of Michigan, and Correctional Medical
Services. In 1996 and 1997,
Smalley provided Genesys with what U.S. attorneys
are calling a false W-4 form, claiming to be exempt from all federal income
taxes. In 2002, the IRS submitted a notice of levy to Correctional Medical
Services to collect taxes due and owing from his wages. Each count of
conviction carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment and a
$250,000 fine.
Pennsylvania
Department of Corrections
March
22, 2013 therepublic.com
ERIE,
Pennsylvania — A woman is suing the health services provider at a western
Pennsylvania county prison claiming a doctor and other medical staff didn't
properly respond to her complaints of pain and bleeding after she fought
with another inmate while pregnant, resulting in her son being stillborn.
Officials with Pittsburgh-based Wexford Health Sources didn't immediately
respond to an email requesting comment after hours Friday on the lawsuit
filed by Tiffany Pollitt and Brian Camp Sr. of Erie. The couple alleges
their son, Brian Jr., was stillborn in August 2009, several days after
Pollitt says she was hit in the abdomen by another inmate while she was
nearly eight months pregnant at the Westmoreland County Prison. The lockup
about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh and it employees are not named in the
lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Erie.
August 18, 2007 Times-Tribune
The Lackawanna County Prison’s medical director was fired from a similar
post at a Pittsburgh-based health care services company in 1999 in an
apparent dispute over a new treatment for hepatitis C in state prisons the
company served. Company officials could not be reached to explain his
termination, but in a lawsuit later filed against the company, Dr. Edward
J. Zaloga claimed he was fired because he
disagreed with a plan to begin treating the liver disease with a then-new,
unproven drug that ultimately would be a waste of taxpayer money. The
treatment “would waste more than $7 million of the (state) taxpayers’ money
on unnecessary and unwarranted medical treatment,” he charged in a suit filed
against Wexford Health Sources Inc. in November 1999. He claimed in his
suit that his management practices had created a profit for the company of
$4.1 million, and the company — which at the time was trying to get the
state to pay for the new treatment — feared it might have to pay for
treating inmates if the state found out about its profits. He was fired for
raising the concerns, he alleged. The suit demanded more than $1 million in
unpaid wages, expenses, lawyer’s fees and punitive damages. The company, in
its legal responses, denied earning anywhere near $4 million. It denied his
other claims as well. County judges rejected Dr. Zaloga’s
suit in separate rulings in 2002 and 2004 with one judge writing that Dr. Zaloga failed to establish “a report of wrongdoing ...
or waste.” Wexford in its legal filings acknowledged firing Dr. Zaloga but did not say why. Dr. Zaloga
is now co-owner of a company, Correctional Care Inc., of Moosic, that
provides medical services to county prison inmates, and oversees those
services. A former inmate, Shakira Staten, 22, a federal prisoner who gave
birth at the prison July 10 and has since been transferred to Adams County
Prison to await sentencing, has sued him, the company and the prison in
federal court. She claims she was a victim of cruel and unusual punishment
because her pleas to be taken to the hospital when she went into labor were
ignored and she had the baby alone in a cell. The county Prison Board this
week apologized for the way she treated and blamed a Correctional Care
nurse for “serious errors of judgment” that included failing to properly
monitor her labor and unnecessarily delaying taking her to the hospital.
The board barred the nurse from working in the prison. A secretary in the
company’s office said Dr. Zaloga was not
available for comment and would only reply to written questions. A
secretary at Wexford Health Sources said no company officials would be
available to comment until next week. Dr. Zaloga
was Wexford’s regional medical director for its central Pennsylvania
operations from Feb. 1 to Sept. 29, 1999, the day the company’s operations
director dismissed him, according to court records.
State
Correctional Institution,
Muncy, Pennsylvania
May 12, 2005 Wilkes Barre Times Herald
The family of a Wilkes-Barre woman who suffered a fatal asthma attack while
in prison will receive $2.15 million in a settlement of a lawsuit against
the state Department of Corrections and a health care provider. Erin
Finley, 26, died on Aug. 29, 2002 after medical personnel at the State
Correctional Institution at Muncy ignored her repeated pleas for help,
according to a federal lawsuit filed by her mother, Christine Thomas of
Wilkes-Barre. Evidence uncovered by Thomas’ attorney, Dan Brier of
Scranton, showed Finley desperately sought medical care for severe asthma
she had had since she was a child, but she was repeatedly rejected based on
a prison doctor’s belief that she was “faking” her symptoms. The federal suit, filed in June 2003,
alleged employees of SCI Muncy and its health care provider, Wexford Heath
Sources Inc., showed a “callous and deliberate” indifference for Finley. Finley
continued to have problems breathing and on July 27 wrote another request,
asking a different physician to see her “as soon as possible.” “My asthma
is so bad and Dr. Bardell says I am faking it. I
don’t know what else to do,” the request stated. On the morning of her
death, Finley phoned her mother in a hysterical state, saying she could not
breathe. At around noon she was directed to go to the infirmary, where a
physician’s assistant examined her. The assistant told Bardell
that Finley needed to go to the hospital, but he refused to see her and
left the prison at 2:40 p.m. Twenty minutes later, Finley lost
consciousness and stopped breathing. She was transported to an area
hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 4:11 p.m.
St.
Clair County Jail, St. Clair, Illinois
October 20, 2005 St. Clair Record
A St. Clair County Jail inmate charged with first degree murder is seeking
$1 million in a lawsuit claiming he was denied proper medication. In a
federal court suit filed Oct. 18 against the county and Wexford Health
Sources, Darron Perkins claims his civil rights were violated and his
mental stability has been detrimentally affected. Perkins, a disabled
Vietnam veteran, claims he was given a greater dose of medication by a
nurse making rounds in the jail approximately two months ago. He consumed
all the medication that had been prescribed to him by a psychiatrist, but
the nurse accused him of giving pills to another inmate.
Wexford Health Services Inc.
Arizona
prisons in health-care quandary: February 16, 2012, Bob Ortega, The
Arizona Republic. Expose on for-profit health providers
Jun
11, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
ACLU settles lsuit over New Mexico prison
medical contract records
The
New Mexico Corrections Department has agreed to pay the American Civil
Liberties Union of New Mexico $37,500 to settle a lawsuit over the agency's
alleged failure to release public records related to its
multimillion-dollar contract with the company that provides medical care to
prison inmates. The department also will provide unredacted versions of the
records requested, which previously had been heavily redacted, ACLU-NM
staff attorney Lalita Moskowitz said Thursday. The state agency agreed to
settle the case Monday, three days before it was scheduled to go to trial
after two years of litigation. "We certainly should not have had to go
to court to get documents [regarding] private corporations our state is
giving money to, and that's essentially what happened here," Moskowitz
said. "A private corporation was allowed to decided
what constitutes public records under our public records laws, which flies
in the face of everything the Inspection of Public Records Act is supposed
to do." Moskowitz said the department let the vendor, Pittsburgh-based
Wexford Health Sources, decide what would be redacted and backed the vendor
in court at the expense of taxpayers. A spokeswoman for the Corrections
Department wrote in an email Thursday the agency maintains its records
custodian acted reasonably and in accordance with state law in handling the
records request, adding the requested documents were "protected from
public inspection by the procurement code." "This case was set
for trial and an agreement in principle was reached in advance to resolve
plaintiff's outstanding attorney's fees after the requested unredacted
documents were produced under seal to plaintiffs solely for litigation purposes
and without the Court ruling they were in fact public records,"
spokeswoman Karen Cann wrote in the email. The
settlement resolves a lawsuit ACLU-NM filed in March 2020, which alleged
the department had failed to comply with the Inspection of Public Records
Act in responding to a request from the civil rights group for records
relating to a four-year, $246 million inmate medical care contract the
state had awarded to Wexford Health in 2019. Wexford did not respond to a
request for comment on the settlement. A spokesman for the General Services
Department said in an email Friday the state has spent $12,374 fighting the
case "to date" but that more bills could be outstanding in the
recently settled case. The state had fired Wexford in 2007 and rejected the
company's bid for the contract in 2016 after Wexford faced more than 50
lawsuits from inmates between 2004 and 2007. The company was awarded a new
contract, however, in 2019. Asked why Wexford had been selected, a Corrections Department spokeswoman said only that the
company had submitted the winning bid. Corizon Health, contracted to
provide inmate medical care between 2007 and 2016, was sued more than 150
times in those nine years. Centurion LLC, which won the contract in 2016,
was the subject of more than 65 lawsuits. The ACLU-NM suit was one of many
legal filings regarding the lack of transparency surrounding private prison
contractors. In a separate case involving The New Mexican, state District
Judge Raymond Ortiz ruled in 2016 records produced by Corizon Health were
public and must be released. The New Mexico Court of Appeals affirmed his
ruling in September. The state Supreme Court declined to review the ruling
in 2019, resulting in the release of some records. But private prison
operators and medical care providers have continued to insist their records
aren't subject to the state's public records law.When the Corrections Department awarded
Wexford's new contract, it did not include a transparency provision.
According to ACLU lawsuit, the organization had requested copies of all
records related to the state's most recent selection of a health care
provider, and the state provided substantial records related to a bid
submitted by a losing vendor but redacted or withheld the
majority of records related to Wexford's bid. The documents obscured
or not produced included the company's insurance certificates, staffing
plan, job descriptions, employee benefit packages and samples of audit
tools that would be used to measure the quality of services Wexford would
provide under the contract, according to the lawsuit. "In total, more
of Wexford's ... proposal to NMDC had been redacted than produced,"
the complaint said.
Feb 9, 2017 clarionledger.com
Mississippi AG files lawsuits in Epps bribery case
Attorney General Jim Hood announced Wednesday his office has filed 11
civil RICO lawsuits against all corporate and individual conspirators
connected to the prison bribery scandal involving former Mississippi
Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps. Hood is seeking damages
and punitive damages against the following individuals and corporations: Epps; Cecil McCrory; Robert Simmons; Irb Benjamin; Sam Waggoner; Mark Longoria; Teresa
Malone; Carl Reddix; Michael Reddix;
Andrew Jenkins; Management & Training Corporation; The GEO Group, Inc.;
Cornell Companies, Inc.; Wexford Health Sources, Inc.; The Bantry Group
Corporation; AdminPros, L.L.C.; CGL Facility
Management, LLC; Mississippi Correctional Management, Inc.; Branan Medical Corporation; Drug Testing Corporation;
Global Tel*Link Corporation; Health Assurance, LLC; Keefe Commissary
Network, LLC; Sentinel Offender Services, L.L.C. and AJA Management &
Technical Services, Inc. “The state of Mississippi has been defrauded
through a pattern of bribery, kickbacks, misrepresentations, fraud,
concealment, money laundering and other wrongful conduct,” Hood said.
“These individuals and corporations that benefited by stealing from
taxpayers must not only pay the state's losses, but state law requires that
they must also forfeit and return the entire amount of the contracts paid
by the state. We are also seeking punitive damages to punish these
conspirators and to deter those who might consider giving or receiving
kickbacks in the future." However, some of those named in Hood's case
haven't been charged in the Epps' case. Jenkins and Michael Reddix haven't been charged in the case. In addition to
Epps and McCrory, others charged are former state Sen. Irb
Benjamin of Madison; Teresa Malone, the wife of former lawmaker and former
House Corrections Chairman Bennett Malone; Texas businessman Mark Longoria;
Dr. Carl Reddix; business and government consultant
Robert Simmons; former MDOC insurance broker Guy E. "Butch"
Evans; and prison consultant Sam Waggoner. McCrory and Waggoner are the
only two who have been sentenced. McCrory received an 8.5 year sentence.
Waggoner was sentenced to five years. According to Hood's lawsuits,
multiple corporations, including some of the most prominent private prison
contractors, paid millions of dollars in so-called “consulting fees” to
individuals who then used those fees to pay bribes and kickbacks to Epps.
Based on those bribes and kickbacks, Epps awarded, directed or extended
approximately $800 million in public contracts to those private prison
contractors. Hood alleges that the defendants violated Mississippi’s public
ethics, racketeering and antitrust laws, along with several other claims.
The Attorney General is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well
as forfeiture of all funds received by the individuals and corporations
that were involved in these conspiracies. Hood said only three of the
companies are from Mississippi. “Out-of-state corporations were eager to
take advantage of Mississippi taxpayers and secure MDOC contracts through
bribery and fraud. It is critical for the state to use the remedies at its
disposal to recover damages and get back the money exchanged in these
schemes,” Hood
said. “I have a duty to protect the integrity of the public contracting
process, as well as to vindicate the rights of the state when it is a
victim of public corruption and other wrongful conduct.” In the federal
case, Epps is accused of running one of the largest and longest criminal
conspiracies in state government history, taking at least $1.4 million in
bribes and kickbacks over eight years to steer more than $800 million worth
of state prison contracts. Epps pleaded guilty in February 2015 to bribery
and filing a false income tax return. He faces a maximum 23 years in
prison. He had initially faced numerous other charges. Epps is scheduled to
be sentenced in May. Hood said through private attorneys his office will
seek to recoup as much money as possible from what he called tainted
contracts. "There needs to be punishment for companies that do
this," Hood said. "I hope the court will grant our costs."
Hood said he expects it to be a long process to try to recoup money from
the individuals and companies.
Oct 31, 2015 businessjournalism.org
Barlett & Steele 2015 Award Bronze
Winner Pat Beall: How We Did It
The
Palm Beach Post series, “Dying for Care” is a good example of investigative
business journalism that changed prison operations in Florida. The Post
documented soaring fatalities and brutally indifferent treatment after
Florida privatized its health care system, and it exposed a billion-dollar
corporation that hid data on its pattern of death and lethal care in
Florida and other states. The investigation won the 2015 Bronze Award in
the Barlett & Steele Investigative Journalism
Awards. Here’s how the Post did it, according to the story’s reporter, Pat
Beall. Florida doctors treating inmates reached out to Beall in April 2014.
They told her that prisoners were dying horrific deaths but refused to
provide any detail, citing HIPPA. To try and substantiate their
observations, Beall requested mortality figures from the Florida Department
of Corrections under the state’s open-records law. DOC turned over minimal
data. Numbers indicated rising death rates, but did not provide enough
detail to determine whether homicides and accidents were driving the
increased numbers as opposed to illness and suicide. But Beall was seeking
specific inmate mortality data. After multiple information requests to the
DOC, officials finally acknowledge they had the data she needed, but they
would need to create a computer program to retrieve it, at an unknown cost
to The Post. Based on previous reporting on Florida’s prison system, Beall
believed that DOC had huge databases of inmate mortality data. DOC ignored
Beall’s multiple requests for more specific data, however. Pressed, they
later provided a slice of irrelevant data. Pressed further, they denied
comprehensive data existed. Post attorneys requested data directly from the
head of DOC. There was no response. While pushing for numbers, Beall also
went looking for inmate stories. To determine possible patterns of
maltreatment, Beall pulled and examined every federal prisoner civil rights
suit brought by all Florida inmates between 2004 and 2014 against the two
companies which held the state prison medical care contracts: Wexford
Health Sources and Corizon Inc., as well as Corizon’s predecessors, Prison
Health Services and Correctional Medical Services. In addition to the more
than 350 Florida suits, she also examined federal lawsuits in Kentucky,
Maine, New York, New Mexico, Idaho, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Oregon and
New Jersey. But Beall faced challenges collecting these stories. Her
correspondence to these inmates frequently disappeared or was returned.
Inmates, their families and their lawyers who won suits were bound by gag
orders. Many court monitoring reports were heavily redacted and names of
inmates were withheld. In cases where suits had not been resolved, all but
one family she contacted declined to speak, on or off the record, citing a
fear of retribution. However, some individuals risked either retribution or
court sanctions in order to provide Beall with background information.
Beall also found little-known audits, medical reports and court-ordered
monitoring reviews. And in more than 2,000 pages of Florida contract bids
and related documents, Beall discovered that Corizon had withheld key
information on recent deaths and critical reports of inmate treatment in
other states; information that would have likely cost them their $1
billion-plus Florida contract. Finally, after months of back and forth with
DOC, the agency quietly published 10 years of detailed inmate mortality
data on its website. It did not tell The Post it had done so. Beall and
Post data editor Kavya Sukumar took the data and used statistical analysis
to determine whether deaths were in fact rising under the newly privatized
health system. Ultimately, Beall unearthed proof that within 100 days of
privatization, inmate deaths from illness hit a 10-year high. The number of
prisoners sent to outside hospitals plummeted. Two inmates with lethal
cancers were ignored, then given Tylenol. One died. Cancer broke the back
of a second inmate in more than a dozen places before he was treated. An
inmate was left without a hip joint. Medicines were abruptly discontinued
and surgeries delayed, with horrific consequences. Beall documented a
years-long pattern of maltreatment and inmate death by Corizon in other
states, cities and counties. When tallied on a spreadsheet, court cases,
audits in other states and reports documented not only a pattern of
substandard care and death, but also some very specific patterns of
maltreatment. DOC first insisted the rising Florida death numbers were a
fluke. Then, 48 hours before Beall’s stories were published in 2014, DOC
issued a press release, announcing it would begin fining Corizon and demanding
reforms from the firm. The president of Corizon, the nation’s largest
inmate health care firm, flew to Tallahassee, and pledged staff from other
states would be brought to Florida. Early in 2015, Beall’s work was cited
by legislative committees and a major white paper on state prison reform.
In January 2015, the DOC secretary and the governor’s top-ranking prisons
aide quit. But abuse continued. In February 2015, Beall secured and
published documents showing Corizon had failed to report information on inmate
deaths, failed to stock even basic drugs, doled out powerful psychiatric
drugs without doctors’ supervision and delayed expensive treatments for
life-threatening conditions, including cancer, which could only be provided
outside the prison walls. Additionally, Beall told the story of a third
inmate who died after her spreading, painful cancers were first ignored,
then treated with ibuprofen. Ten days after her story appeared, the state
canceled the contracts, valued at more than $1.3 billion. They are now
being rebid.
August 18, 2007 Times-Tribune
The Lackawanna County Prison’s medical director was fired from a similar
post at a Pittsburgh-based health care services company in 1999 in an
apparent dispute over a new treatment for hepatitis C in state prisons the
company served. Company officials could not be reached to explain his
termination, but in a lawsuit later filed against the company, Dr. Edward
J. Zaloga claimed he was fired because he
disagreed with a plan to begin treating the liver disease with a then-new,
unproven drug that ultimately would be a waste of taxpayer money. The
treatment “would waste more than $7 million of the (state) taxpayers’ money
on unnecessary and unwarranted medical treatment,” he charged in a suit
filed against Wexford Health Sources Inc. in November 1999. He claimed in
his suit that his management practices had created a profit for the company
of $4.1 million, and the company — which at the time was trying to get the
state to pay for the new treatment — feared it might have to pay for
treating inmates if the state found out about its profits. He was fired for
raising the concerns, he alleged. The suit demanded more than $1 million in
unpaid wages, expenses, lawyer’s fees and punitive damages. The company, in
its legal responses, denied earning anywhere near $4 million. It denied his
other claims as well. County judges rejected Dr. Zaloga’s
suit in separate rulings in 2002 and 2004 with one judge writing that Dr. Zaloga failed to establish “a report of wrongdoing ...
or waste.” Wexford in its legal filings acknowledged firing Dr. Zaloga but did not say why. Dr. Zaloga
is now co-owner of a company, Correctional Care Inc., of Moosic, that
provides medical services to county prison inmates, and oversees those
services. A former inmate, Shakira Staten, 22, a federal prisoner who gave
birth at the prison July 10 and has since been transferred to Adams County
Prison to await sentencing, has sued him, the company and the prison in
federal court. She claims she was a victim of cruel and unusual punishment
because her pleas to be taken to the hospital when she went into labor were
ignored and she had the baby alone in a cell. The county Prison Board this
week apologized for the way she treated and blamed a Correctional Care
nurse for “serious errors of judgment” that included failing to properly
monitor her labor and unnecessarily delaying taking her to the hospital.
The board barred the nurse from working in the prison. A secretary in the
company’s office said Dr. Zaloga was not available
for comment and would only reply to written questions. A secretary at
Wexford Health Sources said no company officials would be available to
comment until next week. Dr. Zaloga was Wexford’s
regional medical director for its central Pennsylvania operations from Feb.
1 to Sept. 29, 1999, the day the company’s operations director dismissed
him, according to court records.
June 10, 2003
The company that provides health care
to inmates in Pennsylvania's 26 state prisons will terminate its contract
with the state, citing cost overruns. The state's $493 million
contract with Wexford Health Services Inc. was to run through October
2007. The company cited soaring pharmaceutical costs and an
unexpected increase in the number of state inmates for the decision. Wexford,
in a January letter, told the state Department of Corrections that it
planned to end the contract in September. (AP)
Wyoming
Department of Corrections
September 19, 2005 Star-Tribune
Wyoming Department of Corrections officials hope a new $10 million-a-year
contract with Prison Health Services will save them some health care costs
in the long run. Unlike the department's previous contract with
Correctional Medical Services, the new private health care provider will be
an umbrella entity responsible for all medical, dental and health services
and other programs for the state's four penal institutions. Prison Health
Services of Brentwood, Tenn., will subcontract for some of these services
and also assumes 100 percent of the risk with no caps on catastrophic
claims. PHS, like CMS and another predecessor, Wexford, has its critics.
The May 2005 issue of Prison Legal News said PHS has been the target of
lawsuits over inmate health care in New York, New Jersey, Nevada and
Florida. Linda Burt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union for
Wyoming, said the volume of health care complaints from inmates has
remained the same from Wexford through CMS and now to PHS. "It's still
one of our big concerns," Burt said. She said she looks carefully at
all private prison providers. "Nothing has ever shown me that private
providers in the prison system work well. It doesn't matter whether they
are private providers of the entire prison or just health care," she
said. She noted that both Wexford and PHS also were sued. "I think the solution is an in-house
solution," she added. "If you're working for profit in that kind
of system, you can't provide the appropriate care and be a for-profit
system. I think it's almost impossible to do that."
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