Correctional facility medical company watchdogs point out the troubling correlation between increasing profits and denying appropriate medical care to inmates.

Research shows that a particular company’s predecessor spent at least $1.3 million per year on ambulance fees and prisoner hospital stays. Once the new company was in place, the amount spent on hospitalizations shrunk by approximately 53%. The profit margin for the health care company soared over a three-year period from 14.6% to 21.5% and then 24.2%. It took two years to reach the mark of $1.5 million for hospitalizations and emergency room visits. The company defended its actions, pointing out that there was a new infirmary at the jail and there was an anticipation of a decline in inmate visits to hospitals.

In one story that emerged during the investigation into patterns of cost-cutting negatively affecting inmate medical and mental health services, a sheriff was making a push for accreditation. As a result, a psychiatrist more than 80-years-old was pushed to provide care for an overwhelming number of inmates. Nurses have since said that, routinely, prescription renewals were simply placed on the doctor’s desk for his signature without inmates having been seen. This practice, with regard to controlled medications and many psychotropic drugs, is prohibited in that state.

A year before the elderly psychiatrist died, several former workers say that there was a waiting list of 120 inmates needing psychiatric or medical consultations.

Learn more about this story in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and this ongoing series.

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–Guest Contributor