|
Alabama Department of Corrections
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
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
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
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
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
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."
|
|
