This commentary is by Leslie Thorsen, a resident of Chester.
On May 4, members of the Vermont Just Justice organization held a rally at the Statehouse to bring awareness to the accepted practice of denying health care to incarcerated individuals.
Vermont law 28 VSA 801 (a) clearly states the following: The department shall provide health care for inmates in accordance with prevailing medical standards.
A quick look-up for the VitalCore Kansas-based provider states the following under cost containment: VitalCore controls costs by ensuring that the patient receives the right amount of care the first time.
And there is an emphasis on its staff being trained to make medical judgment calls and only sending patients off-site when needed.
Last week, Vermont Public hosted a call-in to the state corrections commissioner, defender general, and commissioner of health. The first call highlighted the type of care, or lack of care, our inmates receive for our $23 million expenditure on the for-profit care. This individual suffered a broken foot while incarcerated and, according to his grandmother, he never had an X-ray or treatment in spite of multiple sick slips asking for care. He is now out of prison with a painful nonunion fracture.
The defender general openly admitted that short-term incarcerations often do not yield treatment because, to get care outside of the prison wall, an incarcerated individual has to bring a lawsuit. How is that the prevailing medical standard that our law mandates? Why are we allowing appropriate health care to be denied unless a lawsuit against Vitalcore opens the purse string to real health care?
What kind of health care can be administered in a prison where there are no X-rays, MRIs or any other modern-day assessment tools? The only modern-day assessment tool available in prison is telehealth. No testing is performed via telehealth.
Our corrections commissioner blames the systemic health care failure on an increase in the aging population. A look at the Department of Corrections website in March shows only 144 of our in-state inmate population is 55 and over, out of 1,322 inmates. Additionally, he asserts that number has increased, yet from the same website in March 2020 we had 169 inmates 55 and older.
Another assertion is that many suffer from chronic illnesses. Substance use disorder is considered a chronic illness, and those with this disease also can have hepatitis C. I believe that accounts for many of the people he refers to as chronically ill, versus an aging population with other diseases.
Conveniently, on the DOC website, there are no chronic disease statistics listed.
Much has been reported in the news of our inmate death toll rising. And there does not seem to be a change in attitude, or blame for these untimely deaths. Now, we are signing a contract with a new/old health care provider: Wellpath LLC, another for-profit, to the tune of $30 million annually. In addition to wrongful death suits and more than 1,000 federal lawsuits against this company, CNN investigated in 2019 and found that Wellpath “provided substandard care due to its focus on containing costs, leading to numerous deaths and other serious outcomes.” Or same philosophy, different company.
Our corrections commissioner has stated as a value that “people in custody are, first and foremost, people.” With that being said, stop denying people the health care our law provides. A prison is not a hospital, so when an inmate needs a specialist or an X-ray or an MRI, stop denying that care. Stop the allowance of medical care only when litigated. Litigation takes years and allows a disease process to march on.
Stop taking people off the medications they come in with from their community provider. Those providers know their patients the best, not the telehealth provider who cares for hundreds of inmates remotely, with the main objective of denying care for corporate profit.