Judge threatens California prison health takeover
Outraged at what he called the poor quality of medical services for California’s prisoners, a federal judge threatened on Tuesday to take over the prison health care system of the most populous U.S. state.
“The prison medical delivery system is in such a blatant state of crisis that in recent days defendants have publicly conceded their inability to find and implement on their own solutions that will meet constitutional standards,” U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson wrote.
"The state’s failure has created a vacuum of leadership, and utter disarray in the management, supervision, and delivery of care in the Department of Corrections’ medical system.”
The judge’s order gives Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration until July 11 to show why he should not appoint a court receiver to take over the prison health care system, which has responsibility for about 163,000 adult inmates.
The finding in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California follows a 2001 lawsuit that claimed the state was not meeting constitutional minimums in treating sick prisoners.
That case resulted in a 2002 settlement, but since then, Henderson wrote, “the most notable characteristic of this case has been defendants’ failure to achieve any substantial progress in bringing the medical care system even close to minimal constitutional standards.”
‘HORRIFYING’ PRISON TOUR
Last month, experts reviewing San Quentin, California’s oldest and most famous prison, found conditions so poor that they may have contributed to inmate deaths. Henderson was blunt in describing the court’s visit to San Quentin on Feb. 10.
“The result of the tour was horrifying,” he wrote. “Even the most simple and basic elements of a minimally adequate medical system were obviously lacking.”
Henderson’s threat was made public just hours after Schwarzenegger visited Folsom State Prison to sign legislation to overhaul the management of California’s prisons.
A spokesman for the state’s Youth and Adult Correctional Agency said those changes should help cut through a slow-moving, decentralized bureaucracy.
“We’re hopeful that the reorganization will give us the authority and the management structure to address the issues of interest to the court,” said agency spokesman J.P. Tremblay.
“We have a system where in effect you have 32 different health care systems and clinics,” he said. “One of the things we want to do is get a centralized management system in place.”
Vernell Crittendon, a spokesman for San Quentin, said he agreed with some of Henderson’s criticisms, but the incoming flood of criminals contributed to the difficulties.
“We receive nearly 2,000 new people every 30 days… and those 2,000 all must go through that facility which really wasn’t designed to receive that level of activity,” he said.
Judge Henderson was unsympathetic to California’s struggle to improve matters. “It does not take a budget change proposal, a strategic plan, or the hiring of new personnel to keep a medical room sanitary,” he wrote.
“The court does not believe that the Constitution can reasonably be construed to require the court to sit idly by while people are needlessly dying. Rather, the court believes it has the discretion—indeed, the duty—to take immediate action in a manner coextensive with the degree of ongoing and persistent harm.”
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