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Prison News | Health & Medical Issues

Recent events concerning the corrections industry and the topic of Health & Medical Issues. Comments, suggestions and contributions (below) appreciated.

  • Officer Must Face Paralyzed Inmate’s Suit Over Medical Delay
    A Tennessee corrections officer doesn’t have qualified immunity from civil rights claims for allegedly causing a delay in medical care for an inmate who had a spinal abscess that led to temporary paralysis and incontinence, the Sixth Circuit said Jan. 8....[more]

  • Federal Case Moves Forward Over Missouri Inmate's Death
    ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) — A judge is refusing to dismiss several medical workers and Missouri sheriff's department employees from a lawsuit alleging that improper medical care contributed to the death of an inmate soon after he was sent to prison....[more]

  • R Kelly’s lawyer is pushing to get him released from prison to protect his health
    Steve Greenberg claims that the Ignition singer’s health is deteriorating while he is in custody and is heading back to court to try and get Kelly released....[more]

  • Former Virginia inmate wins $1M in medical malpractice suit
    RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A former Virginia inmate won more than $1 million in a malpractice suit against prison medical staff he accused of improperly treating his broken finger, saying he still feels the effects....[more]

  • Inmate suffering from mental illness found unresponsive inside Sonoma County Jail cell, then dies
    A 30-year-old inmate that a county judge declared mentally incompetent last month died Wednesday night after being found unconscious in his Sonoma County Jail cell....[more]

  • Inmate’s beating, lack of medical attention, deleted video raises unanswered questions
    When Gordon Hunter Shutt was arrested in Neptune Beach for driving on a suspended driver’s license, he figured he be processed out of jail in downtown Jacksonville in no time and with no problems....[more]

  • Inmate who was suing prison over poor medical care has died
    RICHMOND, Va. — An inmate who was suing her Virginia prison over allegations of poor medical treatment has died....[more]

  • After grant denial, many Collier inmates still lack medication-assisted treatment for opioid addictions
    Collier County efforts to help curb Florida’s growing opioid problem hit a roadblock earlier this month when a team of local agencies was turned down for a grant that would have helped create a treatment model for county jail inmates....[more]

  • Prison problems: Miscarriages, a baby born in a cell, inadequate services for disabilities
    Women miscarrying due to a lack of proper health care, a woman giving birth alone in a cell, and deaf inmates not getting interpretation services during doctor visits. ...[more]

  • Hepatitis C ruling could add millions to Florida prison health costs
    TALLAHASSEE — The state may have to pay millions of dollars more in treatment costs for inmates infected with hepatitis C, following a federal judge’s ruling that said prison officials have been “deliberately indifferent” in caring for thousands of inmates infected with the virus....[more]

  • Methadone Helped Her Quit Heroin. Now She’s Suing U.S. Prisons to Allow the Treatment.
    About to enter a federal prison, a Massachusetts woman is not permitted to continue taking the opioid as a treatment to block cravings and withdrawal from heroin addiction....[more]

  • Sentenced to prison without a crime: mental health patients locked up in New Hampshire
    Douglas Butler was confused. He thought his son, Andrew Butler, had been transferred to another, more secure psychiatric hospital. But when he drove to the address of the secure psychiatric unit on the outskirts of New Hampshire’s capital of Concord, he couldn’t see anything that resembled a hospital....[more]

  • Next focus for Alabama prison reform: Mental health
    The group, whose recommendations on parole and probation passed the Legislature last spring, has turned to mental health issues in prisons and jails, which contributes to overcrowding....[more]

  • Seven out of 10 women in Pa's prisons are mentally ill; why?
    The number of women in America's jails and prisons has risen in recent decades but, compared to men, they still represent a sliver of the nation's prisoners....[more]

  • State prisons transform mental health care; is it working?
    HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Owing to damage to his frontal lobe when he was born, Jeremy Anthony, 38, has virtually no control over his sexual impulses....[more]

  • Private Manning’s Missing Medical Care
    As a matter of constitutional rights and basic decency, prisoners — including military prisoners — are entitled to proper care for their serious medical conditions. Yet, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other officials continue to deny medically necessary care to Chelsea Manning, the military prisoner formerly known as Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was convicted in August 2013 of leaking a vast cache of classified government documents....[more]

  • Psychiatry prof. talks health gaps in women’s prisons
    The criminal justice system must ensure both public safety and public health, said Jennifer Johnson, associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior. But jails and prisons in the United States do not provide effective health care for their prisoners, especially women....[more]

  • Telemedicine Can Reduce Prison Healthcare Costs: Reaching Out to the Underserved
    COLD SPRING, NY--(Marketwired - Oct 21, 2014) - Across the U.S., many rural jails and prisons either have no mental health services for affected patients or they rely on the limited community mental health agencies for treatment of imprisoned patients with mental illnesses or addiction. CloudVisit Telemedicine offers telepsychiatry solutions to introduce telemedicine in prison that are specially designed to help practitioners safely and securely address those patients' needs, while saving money....[more]

  • Corrections department worries about health care costs
    ?Virginia’s prison system faces a $45 million shortfall in inmate health care through next year, even as the corrections department bears the brunt of the latest round of cuts in the two-year state budget.

    The shortfall emerged this year after a private company that had provided health care to inmates at 17 prisons in hard-to-serve areas ended its contract with the state at the end of September, according to Department of Corrections Director Harold Clarke in a presentation Monday to the House Appropriations Committee....[more]


  • Arizona Agrees to Fix Prison Health System
    (CN) - Arizona must reform its prison health care system and pay more than $5 million in attorneys' fees under a class action settlement announced Tuesday.

    The stipulation of settlement filed in Federal Court in Phoenix cancels a trial that was set to start this month in a class action against the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) by inmates at 10 state prisons....[more]


  • Pennsylvania courts struggle to intervene early with heroin addicts
    The state won't pay to send addicts who have committed low-level crimes and have scant or no criminal records to drug court, which would provide treatment when they have the best chance, experts say, of turning their lives around.

    The state's Intermediate Punishment grant focuses on more serious offenders.

    ...[more]


  • Judge denies order for mentally ill in jails
    SEATTLE (AP) — A federal judge said Wednesday she has serious constitutional concerns about the way the state handles mentally ill people waiting in jails for competency evaluations and treatment, but she denied a temporary restraining order, saying she needs more information before making changes to Washington's mental health system....[more]

  • Counselor strives to help inmates with mental health
    Tate, treatment supervisor at the Blair County Prison, and others associated with lockup have vowed to do something to address the burgeoning number of inmates with mental health conditions who are entering the prison system or who develop symptoms behind bars....[more]

  • Mentally ill North Carolina inmate held in solitary confinement dies of thirst -- Medical Examiner’s Office said Anthony Michael Kerr died of severe dehydration in March of this year
    A North Carolina inmate with mental illness who had been held in solitary confinement died of thirst, according to an autopsy report released Thursday.

    Anthony Michael Kerr, 53, was found unresponsive in the back of a van on 12 March after being driven roughly three hours from Alexander Correctional Institution in Taylorsville to a mental hospital at Central Prison in Raleigh....[more]


  • Jailed, some mentally ill inmates land in lockdown
    Day or night, the lights inside cell 135C of central New Mexico's Valencia County Detention Center were always on.

    Locked inside, alone, for months, Jan Green — a 52-year-old computer technician with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder — rocked on a bench for hours, confiding in an imaginary companion.

    "I would talk and hold conversations just in my little crazy world, I guess you would say, just to keep me company," Green says....[more]


  • Ala. prisons hit with worst TB outbreak in 5 years
    BIRMINGHAM, ALA. — Alabama's prison system, badly overcrowded and facing a lawsuit over medical treatment of inmates, is facing its worst outbreak of tuberculosis in five years, a health official said Thursday.

    Pam Barrett, director of tuberculosis control for the Alabama Department of Public Health, said medical officials have diagnosed nine active cases of the infectious respiratory disease in state prisons so far this year....[more]


  • Orleans sheriff plan OKd for mentally ill inmates
    U.S. District Judge Lance Africk's order calls for the city to spend more than $400,000 on the plan initially for renovations and supplies at the state's Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, where the inmates will be housed. The city also will be required to supply more than $200,000 monthly for security and mental health staff at Hunt, and food for inmates.

    Africk's ruling is the latest in the court-ordered jail reform effort. The city, which funds the jail, and the sheriff, who manages it, have been at odds over how to fund the changes....[more]


  • California Prison Officials Rethink Use of Force on Mentally Ill Inmates -- Prison Guards Would Be Required to Consider Mental-Health Status Before Using Force
    California prison officials have proposed new policies regarding the use of force after videos of prison guards dousing mentally ill prisoners with pepper spray surfaced during a civil trial last year....[more]

  • California Revises Policy on Mentally Ill Inmates
    The changes, which were introduced on Friday, were set in motion after videos showed corrections officers in state prisons dousing severely mentally ill inmates with pepper spray and forcibly removing them from their cells. The videos drew public outrage and were called “horrific” by a federal judge who ordered the footage made public last year....[more]

  • State urges court to review prison health ruling
    PHOENIX (AP) — The state of Arizona has asked a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling nearly two months ago that concluded about 33,000 inmates could join a lawsuit protesting the quality of health care in the state's prisons....[more]


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