Health Care at Rikers Depicted in Harsh Light

By ALVARO BLANCO

Two City Council committees on Tuesday put a sharp and critical focus on what they portrayed as the poor quality of health care on Rikers Island, resulting in at least 15 deaths over the last five years.

Corizon, the company contracted to provide health care at the prison, “has fallen short they’ve fought far too many cases,” said Fire and Criminal Justice Services Committee Chairwoman Elizabeth Crowley, citing the case of a 19-year-old inmate who had chest pains for seven months and was seen by a health care professional eight. times. “The young boy died in his cell because he had a tear in his aorta and never once did he get a chest x-ray,”

Last year Corizon Health was downgraded from a good health rating to fair, marking a decrease in the quality of care provided. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which oversees health services providers, measures performance on a quarterly basis based on 40 performance indicators that include various kinds of healthcare.

However, responsibility for direct medical and mental services fall onto the health service providers. Corizon manages the day-to-day operations at Rikers where some 900 Corizon employees treat 11,000 inmates. It is the biggest for-profit correctional health services provider in the nation.

The company’s chief medical officer, Calvin Johnson told the councilmembers that the firm served some 345,000 inmates in 27 states, including Philadelphia and St. Louis. In 2001 the company received the $140 million contract to provide health services to all the city’s jail except for Vernon Baines Correctional Center which is catered by a small non-profit. It expires at the end of the year.

The company’s representatives did not defend the firm’s record explicitly, but cited figures relating to inmate care.

Health Committee Chairman Corey Johnson reacted sharply to this reticence.

“I feel it’s important to say this,” he replied, because it’s easy when you talk about numbers but when you actually talk about individuals, a 36-year-old man with a severe seizure disorder died two days after he’s placed in solitary confinement and denied his medication.”

He went on to give many other egregious-sounding examples.

Johnson continually questioned Corizon’s representatives on what the company was doing to prevent the deaths of these inmates. His questions were met with silence and avoidance.

“I am very sympathetic with the de Blasio administration and the leadership of the Department of Health and Hygiene and the Department of Corrections,” continued Johnson, “because they inherited a goddam mess from the Bloomberg administration. They have cleaned the budget and added funding into your program. What recommendations have you made over years of dysfunction to make the place better? You’re thanking us for the money now but what proactive steps have you all taken to say here are the issues help make it better?”

His interlocutors remained evasive.