(The Center Square) – A legislative hearing took place Monday to address a monitor’s report that health care in Illinois prisons continues to be subpar.
Four years after a federal court ordered a major overhaul of health care in Illinois prisons, a monitor surveyed the conditions at several Illinois prisons. According to the monitor’s report filed in April in federal court, health care in Illinois prisons continues to be abysmal, especially for those who are elderly or living with mental illness.
“This staffing shortage is critical and results in patients not receiving adequate care,” the monitor concluded.
Camille Bennett with the ACLU of Illinois said Wexford Health Services, which provided prison health care, promised to provide adequate staffing but did not.
“Eight-one percent of the physician positions were not filled,” Bennett said. “These are all positions for which Wexford is responsible. The report states that this threatens the safety of inmates.”
More than 60 inmates died in Illinois Department of Corrections custody last year.
In two of the deaths explained, the monitor found that medical staff prescribed medications that “contributed to a preventable death.” In another case, a 63-year-old man who suffered from liver cancer spent the last day of his life lying on the floor in his own excrement.
During the hearing, state Rep. Thaddeus Jones, D-Calumet City, said the state of prison health care in Illinois has been dismal for years, and wondered why Wexford’s contract wasn’t canceled.
“I’m curious as to why Wexford’s contract wasn’t terminated when they got fired in Florida for some of the same issues that’s going on in Illinois,” Jones said.
The company’s 10-year contract has expired and the state is taking bids for a new contractor.
“The private corporate model of providing health care in the Department of Corrections has simply failed and has failed for so long I don’t think it is fixable,” said Alan Mills, executive director of Uptown People’s Law Center, a civil rights law firm involved in the class action lawsuit that led to the consent decree.
