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Report:
Waits lengthy to see prison doc
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/08/25/loc_wwwloc4prison.html
The
Associated Press
COLUMBUS
- Ohio
prison inmates face long waits for treatment by physicians who
often are overworked and sometimes have histories of
disciplinary problems, a newspaper and television station's
investigation shows.
At least
two inmates died minutes after being released from prison
clinics, and others have gone days without receiving prescribed
medicines, according to the three-month investigation reported
Sunday by The Columbus Dispatch and WBNS-TV.
Some
doctors working in the prison system have criminal records or
have previous license suspensions or other discipline from the
state Medical Board, according to an analysis of thousands of
pages of corrections records.
"We don't
profess that we're perfect," said Reginald Wilkinson, director
of the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. "But we're
also very cognizant of the fact that if there are quirks ... we
want to fix them."
Wilkinson
said problems uncovered are "aberrations" that don't represent
the entire system that provides medical care to more than 45,000
inmates in 33 prisons.
Inmate
complaints about medical care are the type most frequently
received by the Cincinnati-based Prison Reform Advocacy Center.
"This is
a pathetic situation in Ohio, and it needs to be addressed
promptly," said Alphonse Gerhardstein, the center's president.
Some
prisoners have waited three to 16 months for operations, and the
waiting list for surgery once grew to 100 inmates, the
investigation found.
At the
"supermax" Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, one inmate
waited five days for heart surgery while another waited 16
months for an operation to remove a lump on his shoulder that
grew the size of a billiard ball.
In late
2001, inmates at the Lima Correctional Institution went up to
five days without prescriptions during two weeks of staffing
problems at the prison pharmacy.
In the
past three years, the state has paid five wrongful-death claims
filed by relatives of deceased inmates, and more lawsuits are
pending.
Prisons
spokeswoman Andrea Dean compared the death rate in the prison
health care system with that in a conventional hospital. Through
the end of July, 56 Ohio inmates have died. There were 118
prison deaths in 2002 and 118 in 2001, less than 3 percent of
the inmate population.
The
investigation was sparked by the death of Sean Schwamberger, a
19-year-old inmate at the Pickaway Correctional Institution who
died of a drug-resistant staphylococcus infection on April 29.
The
Toledo native was nearing his release date in an 11-month
sentence for cashing forged checks worth less than $800.
Despite
an outbreak of at last 26 staph cases over two months, medical
staff did not take samples to grow the bacteria and determine
the strain. If they had, they would have known penicillin - used
to treat Schwamberger - wouldn't work against that type of
staph.
Such
tests are now standard procedure in the prisons.
Also,
inmates often are treated by medical professionals with a
history of disciplinary problems.
"We do
have to tolerate a different standard sometimes because it's
hard to get people to come and work in the prisons to provide
medical care," Dean said.
At
Pickaway, Schwamberger was under the care of 66-year-old Dr.
Adil Yamour, who had lost his job of eight years at the London
Correctional Institution after supervisors complained he was
experiencing "burnout."
Yamour
said he was discriminated against and provided good care despite
having to see 70 to 90 inmates in an eight-hour shift.
Another
doctor worked at a prison in Lorain and the "supermax" at
Youngstown while 35 criminal charges were pending against him.
Dr. Ayman Kader was later convicted on 10 counts related to
writing bogus amphetamine prescriptions and his medical license
was permanently revoked.
Dean said
the prisons failed to do required criminal records checks in
Kader's case.
Wilkinson
said Ohio's prison system goes beyond requirements in the law
for inmate health care, especially in its partnership with Ohio
State University Medical Center.
The state
pays the campus hospital $26 million a year to treat inmates in
its Corrections Medical Center, which also has a hospice for
terminally ill inmates.
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