@gatekeeper that's completely wtf about Corizon. I guess I don't know enough about healthcare to understand how u can restructure and rename after being disbanded by the Feds.
It boggles the mind, doesn't it? I know you guys' wouldn't tolerate this level of garbage on either side at your prison. And I know how bad it sucks for you to have your hands tied by rank when you do the right thing for an inmate and medical may or may not listen even though you're the one with these guys all the time, day in and day out (*hug*). That's one of things that had to be fixed here.
Re: Corizon/CCA/PHS, since their CEO, Pres., V.P., and most of rest of their Board of Dir. were/are all Business and Finance degrees, and the three Med. staff on PHS' Board of Dir. didn't have their licenses infracted, restricted or pulled, the feds can shut them down one day, and just like scattering cockroaches they'll re-form, reorganize and open a new company the next day. No laws against it.
In this case, after they were shut down, they got "smart" and diversified by creating two company's, so if/when one gets shut down again, they'll still be doing business as the other under a diff. name. That's also why in the "new" companies they spent the $$ to turn the dual position I (and others in ea. of our prisons) had as a Dir. of Nsg. and Hlth. Svcs. Admin. into two separate positions b/c when it was a nurse-only position running things and the jail or prison and the big Admin/CO brass demanded s/he be fired and locked out of the facility immediately, they still had the business degree person in there as the H.S.A. who didn't need a professional license to practice & they'd just grab an RN Charge Nurse off the floor (even w/o a Bachelor's per their own SOP/contract), stick them in the position as a temporary D.O.N. that same day, and it was business as usual. It's disgusting and should be criminal, IMO, but it's perfectly legal and considered "good business practice" in the Corp. world.
I personally think the medical side shouldn't be contracted out (sorry) only because I (we) personally deal with a lot of shit from most of them. We have absolutely no power or rank, so even if I object to a nurse saying someone is fine, my hands are tied. Lt can't, maybe my Capt can get a hold of a supervisor, all the while the inmate could be suffering or be getting worse.
Noooo sorry necessary, Officer Fo. I'm with you 100% on dumping Contract Med. and going back to the old days of county and state run Corr. healthcare who are subject to work laterally
with C.O. brass and staff, not independent from them, and, even though CO's and med. staff can't do each other's jobs, just add an MD, a Psychiatrist and Dentist as Med. Dirs. and everyone has to answer to the same bosses all the way up to the State Atty. Gen., the Governor and the taxpayers. Reorganizing/creating liason positions, and uniting CO & medical staff at the jail/prison here was part of the action plan and how we ended up nationally accredited while the rest of the facilities were falling apart. A lot of deputies really griped about it to their Union at first ("I'm not a nurse!" horsecrap), but they came around.
Also, re: getting rid of Con. Med. here, one of our docs, the County Atty. and I also tried and tried to get our County Commissioners not to renew the contract with the
former company, but because they were (are) national, they can order meds from their own company pharm., for example, by the semi load hundreds of thousands of dollars cheaper than we could get them. Everything boils down to the cheapest of the cheap to line everyone's pockets from the Contract Med. brass to the Sheriff, Admins & Wardens on up the food chain,
and in pharmacy costs alone, it was like a locally-owned pharm. chain trying to compete with Walmart's volume buying power. Between this and their corrupted bus. practices, they under bid the proposal by $750M over three yrs. That's why Con. Med. is so successful in the U.S.; $$ over basic inmate care, rights, and basic human decency.
Don't get me wrong, there are officers who won't get off their fat ass, or get up slowly, when they hear a scream or get a call on the intercom, so it's not just medical staff. And yes, for every 400 bullshit calls, maybe 10 are actually emergencies, but still.
It was the same here, big time, in both jail and the prison, but by creating a liased environment where medical and security worked hand in hand to take care of and look out for each other, too (a brother/sisterhood, "we're all in this together" thing), nurses listened to and respected ofcrs. observations and referrals and ofcrs. treated nurses as if they were their own personal bodyguards, and attitudes changed. By seeing good healthcare, ofcrs. started caring about inmate healthcare needs when they noticed a problem, they knew they'd be taken seriously as our "eyes and ears", and we could all go home and sleep at night. As a perk, in my facilities anyway, nurses also took care of ofcrs/CO's medical needs in the clinics, i.e., if they needed blood sugars, blood pressures, temps, lungs, hearts, etc., checked, emergency insulin injections for diabetics, over-the-counter meds for an acid stomach or a headache, EKG's, pre-hospital checks, etc. It was against company policy (only b/c there was no charge), but it was a little, unspoken thing we could do to help with the cameraderie and morale in the facilities. The best part was not only did we meet the community Standard of Care for all inmates, they knew they could no longer try to play nurses and CO's against each other anymore. Working together to keep nurses and CO's who don't belong in/can't handle Corrections *out* of the facilities was a major help on both sides, too.
