( – promoted by odum)
The Vermont Medical examiner found Wednesday that a 23 year old female prisoner held in Swanton last August died of a heart condition caused by anorexia,bulimia and because she was denied her medication to treat it. “Denial of access to medication”while in State of Vermont custody was a cause according to the Vermont medical examiner. An independent investigation by the state Defender General’s Office found that a nurse ordered to give Ellis potassium for an eating disorder failed to do so.
An investigation is still underway but a state prison official has stated quite clearly
The Department of Corrections’ staff never dispenses medication – a task he said is carried out solely by Prison Health Services, the private contractor that gives medical service to the state’s prisons.
A private contractor provides health services to the Vermont State Corrections Dept.
Prison Health Services (PHS) a subsidiary of American Service Group a Tennessee based publicly traded company. They have provided services to Vermont for the last four years. In 2006 while renegotiating a money losing contract with the state (a bid described at the time by a state officials as “possibly too aggressive”) in the face of a one million dollar loss they were faced with substantial fines and penalties for not meeting contract obligations. Replacing the required registered nurses on some shifts with licensed practical nurses was one area of concern.
Recently PHS has defended itself regarding the Swanton death in state custody but will not seek to renew their contract. A PHS spokesman says of this “It’s a business decision” The Corrections Commissioner also states the obvious “I suspect they now know that in all likelihood they would not win the bid again,”
America Service Group Inc. of Tennessee parent company of Prison Health Services, Inc and Correctional Health Services, LLC
has a market cap of $150.1 million; its shares were traded at around $15.9 with a P/E ratio of 30.4 and P/S ratio of 0.3. The dividend yield of America Service Group Inc. stocks is 1.2%.
http://www.timesargus.com/arti…
http://www.vermontguardian.com…
We contract out prison health services? Next it will be their brains they contract out.
And the private prisons we send Vermonters to in other states are owned and operated by Corrections Corp. of America, which also has been fined quite a bit for running a shoddy operation. These private companies are about one thing-the allmighty dollar. Sadly, they are also about padding the campaign accounts of many politicians, on both sides of the aisle. Until we break this cycle, meaning enact comprehensive campaign reform measures, these companies will continue to literally get away with murder. I hope this is an issue in the 2010 campaign. It needs to be.
It starts with transportation, moves to food, and I’m hearing that providing para-professionals will be next.
The equation is simple. You have to believe that a private company can cut costs equal to their profit plus the very high salaries and expenses of their corporate managers. In the rare cases where there are better ideas, rather than just cutting workers’ salaries, we can just steal the ideas…but most of the time the idea is to transfer the employees, pay and train them less, and offer poorer services, whether it’s in prisons, schools or other public services. Then (as pointed out) the deciding state politicians collect campaign donations from the “brilliant” private company and search for other places to put this brilliant “solution” in place. I’d rather listen to an honest town meeting complainer (“Just why do we need a school building anyway? Can’t they just use the internet?”) than these “privatizers” who don’t give a damn as long as they’re re-elected.