Death and politics roil a Georgia jail
Source: Reuters
Death and politics roil a Georgia jail
In Savannah, an independent monitor cited widespread problems in the mental health care provided to suicidal inmates. As deaths mounted, the monitor was forced out, a telling snapshot of a national problem: Private jail healthcare contractors operate with limited scrutiny.
By NED PARKER, JASON SZEP and LINDA SO Filed Sept. 4, 2019, 6 p.m. GMT
SAVANNAH, Georgia – In the summer of 2016, Georgia’s Chatham County hired jail monitor Steven Rosenberg with a mission: scrutinize the county jail’s healthcare services after a string of deaths.
In the previous 30 months, seven inmates had died at the Chatham County Detention Center, shaking public confidence. The last healthcare provider lost its contract in June 2016 after some of its own staff accused it of improper practices.
Chatham County sought a fresh start, signing a multiyear contract worth $7 million annually with a small Atlanta company, CorrectHealth LLC. The county wanted to know whether the new provider was taking the steps needed to prevent deaths.
But after several trips to the jail that summer through winter, Rosenberg’s team delivered four scathing reports. They described staff shortages, unclear health guidelines and failures to give inmates prescribed medications. Such failings, they warned, could trigger “potential loss of life.” Indeed, that September, six weeks before the second report was issued, an inmate strangled himself with a telephone cord. The death came after the monitors warned that the facility lacked written policies for suicidal inmates.
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Both companies were politically connected in Savannah. CorrectHealth, and its president’s wife, had donated $5,000 to the election campaign of Chatham County Sheriff John Wilcher. CorrectHealth also had hired a state senator to run the jail’s dental clinic. And pharmacy operator Quick Rx was owned by a powerful member of the Georgia House of Representatives.
Rosenberg’s team was allowed back three weeks later, but the skirmish was the start of a standoff between the monitor on one side, and county and company on the other. Within a year, the county terminated the monitor’s contract, at the sheriff’s request, and waived $5 million in fines the monitor had recommended imposing on CorrectHealth. Wilcher rebuffed a plan to hire a new provider.
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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-jails-monitor/