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Also this issue: Rent! Ralph and Ruthie: The Movie Variety Club The Bell Curve Smoke -- We Need the Money |
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June 13-19, 2002
city beat
 critical: Pat Scanlon, a former Philadelphia inmate, supports City Councilās recommendations for prison reform. Photo By: jon rossi |
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The city recently renewed a $28 million contract with a private health-care company that treats Philadelphia inmates -- but city officials spend millions more to settle lawsuits involving medical neglect. Now, after a year of pressuring the Street administration to respond to evidence of subpar treatment, prison health-care activists are finally seeing some action.
City Managing Director Estelle Richman met prison activists June 6 and agreed to investigate allegations of medical neglect in Philadelphia-run jails. The day before, about 150 people demonstrated in the scorching heat outside the Municipal Services Building, where Richman works. They demanded that the for-profit company under contract to treat the 7,000 inmates in Philadelphia jails on any given day be held accountable for what they contend is widespread medical neglect and even inmate deaths. The Tennessee-based Prison Health Services (PHS) has held the contract since 1993.
On June 11, two City Council committees approved a report introduced by Councilman Angel Ortiz. The report proposes the creation of an independent board, comprised of former inmates and public health experts, to oversee and evaluate medical care in Philadelphia jails. The board would be similar to the Police Advisory Commission that hears allegations of police brutality.
The Council report also recommends that PHS's contract be revised to establish clear standards for care, "especially for chronic illnesses, including AIDS, diabetes and mental health conditions." In addition, it urges the city not to renew its contract with PHS without City Council approval.
PHS's parent company, the American Services Group, admits it is bleeding money on its contract with Philadelphia. In March, the company released a stockholder report attributing 90 percent of its previous year's losses to two contracts: one with Philadelphia and the other with the state of Kansas. As a result, activists claim, PHS is attempting financial triage by cutting corners.
Last year, two independent medical consultants, Drs. Robert Greifinger and Raymond Patterson, issued reports concluding gross medical neglect in Philadelphia jails. They found inmates waiting as long as eight weeks to be seen in the chronic care clinic, despite a contractual requirement that inmates be seen within 14 days. The reports also found that PHS failed to screen and treat all inmates for sexually transmitted diseases, as required; that inmates are routinely released from jail without a three- to five-day supply of medication, as the contract specifies; and that inmates with mental-health referrals are being neglected.
The doctors also concluded that a PHS "understaffing crisis" contributed to lax suicide watches, delays in treatment and messy record-keeping. Yet the city opted not to impose sanctions on PHS for violating the terms of its contract, and it even continued to pay the company for vacant staff positions.
PHS senior vice president Lawrence H. Pomeroy denied any crisis. He said that a new database system more efficiently tracks and schedules inmates in the chronic care clinic; that PHS is working with the city to identify and treat patients with sexually transmitted diseases; that, with appropriate notification from security, inmates are receiving discharge medications; that PHS is working with correctional officers to provide HIV-positive patients with a 30-day supply of all their HIV medications upon release; and that mental-health referrals are now addressed "in a timely manner."
ACT UP member Julie Davids was among the activists who met with Richman in her office June 6. She would divulge few specifics about the meeting, except to say that Richman agreed to investigate allegations of medical neglect in jails and meet activists again in July.
Mayoral spokesman Frank Keel, who answered press questions on Richman's behalf, says the Street administration disagrees with activists' calls for the city to levy fines against PHS "if the allegations prove to be true."
"The best way to correct any errors is to take an honest approach and ask how we can correct these problems," Keel says.
But Davids and other activists point to PHS's $300 million contract to provide treatment in New York City's jails. The company had to cough up $113,000 last summer after a quarterly review concluded that PHS wasn't meeting performance targets.
"Part of the reason New York's contract allows fines is because officials there saw what was happening in Philadelphia," Davids asserts.
In light of the fact that PHS is losing money on its contract with Philadelphia, Keel says that "one scenario likely to be explored" is increasing the city's payment to the health-care provider.
Keel characterizes PHS as "a very good company that has entered into [performance talks] in the right spirit and is willing to candidly discuss these issues."
In a written statement provided by PHS spokesperson Colleen Roche, the company refutes allegations that it is failing to live up to its contract requirements.
"PHS has consistently met all contract requirements and is currently providing all staffing levels as required under the contract," reads the statement. "PHS has successfully recruited and retains a group of highly qualified physicians, nurses and other clinical and support personnel in Philadelphia ...."
The statement also asserts that PHS "welcomes accountability and performance standards" in its contracts.
"In fact, in New York City -- where we are evaluated quarterly on over 40 rigorous performance-based criteria -- we have demonstrated consistent improvement every quarter and consistently exceeded the performance of any previous health-care provider," it says.
And should an independent oversight board be established, PHS promises in the statement to "work collaboratively" on contract changes "to ensure that the patients in our care continue to receive quality health-care services."
During the June 5 demonstration outside Richman's office, former inmate Pat Scanlon recalled being denied HIV meds for five days when he began serving a sentence at the House of Correction.
"Half of the people in some of these institutions are awaiting trial, not even convicted -- yet they face a death sentence if they get sick or have a chronic illness, like AIDS or diabetes, because Prison Health Services is understaffed, incompetent," Scanlon says. "And no one in the Street administration seems to care."
A handful of members of the Stop PHS Coalition stormed Richman's office hours before the June 5 rally and staged a "lockdown." They handcuffed themselves to furniture and tossed out fliers demanding prison health reform.
"We went there to tell Ms. Richman we plan to keep the heat on until this crisis is over," says coalition member Rob O'Brien. "We're not going to let her pass the buck."
