Man Down

Three guys in our building spent the better part of last week hospitalized in the prison ward at MCV Hospital in Richmond.  All three were suffering from bacterial pneumonia.  All three saw rapid weight loss, excessive fluid buildup in their lungs, and swelling of their heart linings.  That all three had requested medical care only to be repeatedly denied both sick call access and emergency medical treatment over the past two weeks should come as no surprise.  Medical care sucks in prison.

Virginia outsources most prison medical care.  And as a recent Federal lawsuit brought on behalf of female inmates at Fluvanna Corrections Center can attest, adequate care is not the driving force behind those outsourcing contracts.  For the state, it’s simply cost; and for the company it’s purely profit.  Prison Medical companies have sprung up to provide medical care at a fixed price, per inmate.  Every time an inmate requires “extra” visits beyond nurse/gatekeeper reviews; testing or specialized treatment, the medical provider’s profit margin is squeezed.

For the Commonwealth, medical care for inmates pushes DOC’s budget even higher.  Rather than re-considering their antiquated – and failed – policy of lengthening sentences for all, not just violent, felonies, Virginia DOC willingly outsources more and more of its obligations.  The problem is DOC pays – you the taxpayer pay – every time more outsourced medical care leads to hospitalization.

Inmates are, generally, not folks who had regular access to healthcare before incarceration.  Thrust them into the cesspool that is an ordinary prison, with HIV positive inmates sleeping beside Hepatitis C inmates, with filth and dirt and bodily fluids lurking in every corner and it’s a no brainer.  Guys will get deathly ill and a few – too many – will die.  And poor medical care and death lends to lawsuits, lawsuits paid by taxpayers.

Our three college students, all young and healthy and mid-twenties will survive…this time.  But what about next time?  Why does it take collapsing in the chow hall with a fever to get medical attention?  Why do guys collapse in buildings every week and officers casually walk in and radio “man down” and then wait five minutes for a nurse and stretcher to be pushed up the boulevard?

Why?  Because the system is overwhelmed.  The politicians didn’t tell the truth about the real costs of locking a man up.

Guys get rushed to MCV near death.  The system goes on.  Me?  I keep running and taking my vitamins.