SAVANNAH, Georgia - Matthew Loflin was coughing up blood, struggling to breathe and losing consciousness in his cell while awaiting trial on drug-possession charges in this historic Southern city.
When Loflin’s X-ray showed a suspicious spot in his chest on April 7, Pugh tried another plan: He sent Loflin to a cardiologist, believing the specialist would want him hospitalized. After a quick exam, the cardiologist sent him straight to the hospital, but it was too late. Loflin, 32, deteriorated quickly, suffering irreversible brain damage. He died April 24.
In the last years of Corizon’s watch from 2014 to 2016, prescription drugs went missing, patients deemed gravely ill by medical staff were denied hospitalization, mentally ill inmates went untreated and records were falsified, Reuters found. Weeks passed with no doctor on site, leaving care to nurses and video calls with doctors. The jail’s 400 mentally ill inmates, nearly a quarter of its population, were treated by a sole psychiatrist.
Jails with publicly managed medical services, usually run by the sheriff’s office or local health department, had an average of 12.8 deaths per 10,000 inmates in that time. Jails with healthcare provided by one of the five companies had an additional 2.3 to 7.4 annual deaths per 10,000 inmates. The death rates were 18% to 58% higher, depending upon the company.
In Savannah, Corizon was eventually replaced by another contractor amid a series of deaths. Corizon said it never sacrificed care for profits. “I would not have operated in or stayed in that kind of environment,” said Dr. Calvin Johnson, the Tennessee company’s chief medical officer from 2014 to 2016.
The industry expanded through the 1990s and early 2000s as a push to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill spurred the closure of mental health hospitals – sending many former patients to the streets, and then jail. Many sheriffs have embraced the chance to shed the headaches of managing their own medical operations. “It is a package deal and everything is done for you,” said Captain Jessica Pete, whose facility, the St. Louis County Jail in Duluth, Minnesota, hired regional contractor MEnD Correctional Care in 2012. “We are getting fantastic care.”
The USA 'greatness' at it's best !!
Donald Johnson, you will be missed. Sorry it took Reuters 6 years to report on your death. You were a good man, a good father, and a good grandpa.
This has long been happening. Harpers Magazine did a piece on a company, CMS, providing Medical care in MI prisons, don't know if they did jails too, back in like 2000 or so, horrible care, they killed many, people dying of cancer slated to be released soon were given aspirin.
Cruel and unusual! Corizon has no corazón
Thanks Reuters for the report. Clearly something should be done. An underlying problem is the excessive cost of U.S. healthcare, which affects everyone, not only prisons. The justice system hands out long prison terms too often. Pay for health, not illness.
Privately run, for profit prisons apprently have some of the worst treatment, conditions of prisoners to increase their profit margins
Sounds Beautiful 'Outsourcing'! The Reality Tells Another Story! The US Justice System Is Long Rotten!
Low bid wins again.
thankfully jails and prisons are filled with criminals, so we aren't losing much. In many ways, the virus is helping the country by surging in the prisons system