Widespread problems detailed in newly released reports in lawsuit against the Arizona Department of Corrections. I have been investigating the matter of health care for quite some time. Here is what one of the medical experts concluded. CONFIDENTIAL REPORT OF ROBERT L. COHEN, M.D. The ADC prisons I visited are unable to sustain the basic delivery of medical care because of limited clinical staffing and the overwhelming number of prisoners who have serious, long-standing, and complicated medical care needs, causing lengthy treatment delays. The long delays in care needlessly compound and aggravate medical conditions that, had they been addressed sooner would have been managed and resolved. The documents I reviewed, including ADC contract monitoring reports, medical records and death reviews, establish that the conditions I observed are typical throughout the state. Prisoners with chronic conditions, including HIV, diabetes, cancer, seizure disorders, hepatitis and hypertension, are particularly at risk in the ADC’s system. While many patients with chronic illnesses can be managed and live with relatively stable health, ADC’s system lacks an adequate tracking and management system to ensure that patients have regular provider visits and medication renewals. Not surprisingly, I found numerous patients at both prisons who were much sicker than they would have been had they been adequately managed. In fact, there were multiple cases in which the lapses were so shocking and dangerous that I felt ethically obligated as a medical professional to bring them to the immediate attention of the ADC and Corizon staff. Death Sentence: azcentral/story/news/arizona/2014/05/22/12news-death-sentence-prison-healthcare-costly-ineffective/9395497/ Another Death Sentence: azcentral/story/news/investigations/2014/08/01/12news-another-death-sentence/13494875/
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 20:46:09 +0000
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