The Vermont Department of Corrections is not meeting the requirements of a settlement over treatment of incarcerated individuals with hepatitis C, according to the attorneys who brought the lawsuit that led to the agreement.
A deal reached in July 2021 resolved a class-action federal lawsuit brought in May 2019 over the lack of proper care for incarcerated individuals with the virus.
The lawsuit was filed after a legislative hearing in 2018, where it was revealed that only one of the 258 people in custody who had the disease in 2017 received treatment.
The lawsuit names as defendants top officials with the Agency of Human Services, including Nicholas Deml, the corrections commissioner, and VitalCore Health Strategies, under contract with the state to provide prison health care.
The 2019 lawsuit was brought by the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Harvard Law School’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, and the law firm of Costello, Valente & Gentry in Brattleboro.
Now, in a recent court filing, those parties are calling on Judge William K. Sessions III to enforce the provisions of the settlement that they allege the corrections department is failing to meet.
“It’s disappointing that it has come to this,” attorney Suzanne Davies of Harvard Law School’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation said Wednesday.
“It’s our hope that people that we are aware of who haven’t been treated are going to be able to get treatment,” she said.
Rachel Feldman, a spokesperson for the corrections department, declined comment Wednesday on the latest developments “due to the ongoing legal nature.”
The state and VitalCore, in a joint filing Wednesday, asked the judge for an extension of the usual 14 days to submit a response. They contend the information raised in the enforcement motion is new to the settlement and is complex. They asked to have until Dec. 2 to respond.
The added time is needed, according to the filing, since the response “requires analysis at (a) level deeper than a scant reply so that the Court has the most thorough information from both parties to efficiently review the matter.”
The settlement had called for the corrections department to meet several standards of care for incarcerated individuals with hepatitis C. The provisions included:
- Screening individuals for hepatitis C when they enter Department of Corrections custody.
- Treating sentenced incarcerated individuals “as soon as possible” if the course of treatment can be completed during that person’s time in custody.
- Referring “especially compromised” incarcerated individuals immediately to a medical provider for assessment and care.
- Providing treatment and screening data for two years to the attorneys who brought the lawsuit.
According to the recent filing from those who brought the lawsuit, monthly reporting from the corrections department shows a “shockingly high” number of “patient refusals” for treatment.
The filing stated that in May 2022, of 145 corrections patients known to have the virus, 19 patients were not approved for treatment because the “patient refused,” while only four were listed as undergoing treatment.
“In other words,” according to the filing, “in May 2022, 13% of patients with HCV were not approved for treatment because ‘patient refused,’ while only 2% were actually receiving treatment.”
The high number of refusals, the filing stated, may be partly due to patients being provided with “outdated and misleading” information regarding the “safety and efficacy” of the treatment.
“By giving patients false, out of date, and misleading information about HCV treatment options,” the filing stated, ”VT DOC denies them the opportunity to engage in a process of informed consent regarding their own medical care — clearly violating the spirit of the settlement agreement.”
The lawsuit brought in 2019 alleged that treatment at that time was provided only to incarcerated individuals whose hepatitis C had met a certain level of severity. Others regarded as having only mild or early liver disease, according to the lawsuit, were deemed ineligible for medication.
To cure hepatitis C, court filings stated, a pill needs to be taken daily for eight to 12 weeks.