Advocates say inmates with chronic conditions not receiving adequate health care behind bars
BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - A serious gum disease, seizures, and a PTSD diagnosis are a few of the problems suffered by an inmate after a three-year, pre-trial stay in Vermont prisons. It’s an example, advocates say, of a for-profit health care contractor overseeing chronic illnesses that can often get worse behind bars.
“I’ve been a type one diabetic since the year 2000. And when I got to prison, I ended up having multiple seizures. I ended up almost falling into a coma.,” said former Vermont inmate David Allen. He was arrested in July 2020 but waited over three years for a trial until a judge offered his release in exchange for a no-contest plea. “If I’d stayed there and continued to fight, I’m pretty sure I would have died.”
Allen is now fighting through the aftermath of his prison medical care -- a PTSD diagnosis and $15,000 in dental bills from a diabetic gum disease he says he developed waiting behind bars.
Vermont prison officials say the state spends $35 million a year on private health care contractors, the second highest amount per capita in the country. “We hold our contractors to a really high standard and that’s why we had such few bidders,” said DOC’s Isaac Dayno.
A quick Google search shows Centurion and Vital Core, the previous contractors have been involved -- and sometimes found liable -- in dozens of lawsuits. In the past five years, the DOC has switched contractors three times before going with Wellpath, the current provider.
“It’s a for-profit company and any money that they spend, it comes out of their profit,” said Leslie Thorsen with the group Vermont Just Justice. The registered nurse reviews medical records of released inmates, including Allen’s, and says there are serious systematic problems with the quality and timeliness in which medical care is administered in prisons. “There’s no motivation for them to provide David with the insulin pump and the continuous glucose monitor because they would have to pay for that.”
If inmates want to seek medical help, they fill out a “sick slip” that gets delivered by a corrections officer to Wellpath staff, who then decide how and if the request will be addressed.
Dayno says wait times to see these providers is similar to primary care physicians outside of prison and that 90% of those in prison have chronic illness. “It’s a huge mandate we’ve been given and I think the reality is, we are not a hospital,” he said.
While corrections officers receive first aid and CPR training, critics say they don’t have the knowledge to make an immediate medical assessment for each and every inmate’s nuanced health care needs and sometimes that can result in harm.
“It is the responsibility of the system to take care of us, to give us the medical care that we need, and they’re not doing it. And I just want to see I want to see that change,” Allen said.
Allen sued the DOC for his treatment in prison but the case was dismissed. Thorsen is among those who says Vermont state employees should provide health care rather than a private company.
The DOC says prisoners don’t have rights to Medicaid, so the cost of the switch would be over $100 million while the care, according to their research, would be almost identical.
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