Women Prisoners Contend State of Alabama
is in Contempt of Federal Court Order over Tutwiler Prison
Poor Medical Care
Persists at Tutwiler 21 Months After Court Order to Improve Care
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA , May
10, 2006 –
21 months after District Court Judge Myron Thompson ordered the State of
Alabama to improve dangerously deficient medical care at Julia Tutwiler
Prison for Women, the State has failed to comply by the Federal Court's
Consent Order. Attorneys from the Southern Center for Human Rights
(SCHR) and Holland & Knight LLP today asked the Federal Court to
intervene and enforce its Order.
In August
2004, the ADOC entered a comprehensive Settlement Agreement with all
women presently incarcerated within the ADOC. The Agreement provides
the women with relief from unsafe and overcrowded conditions at Tutwiler
Prison and Birmingham Work Release. The Agreement also ensures adequate
medical care is provided to all women incarcerated by the ADOC. Based
on the Consent Order, obligations within the Medical Settlement
Agreement apply to both the state and its corporate medical provider,
currently Prison Health Services, Inc. (PHS).
"It's unfortunate that we
must go back to court to get the state to enforce terms of an agreement
that the ADOC itself helped draft," says attorney Gretchen Rohr of
Holland and Knight LLP. "Women at Tutwiler, who are at the mercy of
whatever health care is provided at the prison, suffer because of the
state’s failure to comply with the federal court order."
Dr. Michael
Puisis, a nationally respected expert in correctional healthcare, was
appointed by the Federal Court to monitor ADOC’s compliance. Dr. Puisis
has issued five Reports on Medical Care. In each, he found the ADOC to
not be in compliance . In his fifth and most recent report, Dr. Pusis
reviewed 87 sections of the Settlement Agreement, and found only 21 to
be in full compliance. The other 66 sections were either non-compliant
or partially compliant.
Other
deficiencies noted in the Court Monitor's fifth report include
dangerously deficient medical examinations, insufficient evaluation and
monitoring of prisoners in segregation, lapses in medication, no
infection control program, a broken system for administering medication
where approximately a quarter of required doses of medicine are not
reaching patients every day, pill calls (the times when medication is
passed out) occurring only twice a day, an infirmary that does not
conform with required standards, and only a rudimentary quality
management plan for identifying and correcting these deficiencies.
"It's a
waste of money for the State of Alabama to keep paying $51 million
dollars a year to PHS if PHS keeps missing the mark," states Lisa Kung,
director of SCHR.
To read the Motion for Contempt, click
here
To view the Judge
Thompson's opinion, click here.
For a copy of the complaint, click here.
For a copy of the amended complaint, click here.
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