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BY JEFF GERRITT
FREE PRESS EDITORIAL WRITER
August 22, 2006
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Lloyd Byron Martell, 41, was paroled from Southern Michigan Correctional Facility in Jackson after being diagnosed with cancer. His mother, Donna Martin of Dearborn, meets him in Detroit Aug. 15. (KIMBERLY P. MITCHELL/Detroit Free Press) |
| What's at stake |
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The $190-million-a-year prison health care system that covers 50,000 prisoners in the state's nearly 50 prisons. The problems What's next To read previous coverage, go to |
Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Monday ordered an independent review of the troubled prison health care system.
"If changes are warranted, changes will be made," said Liz Boyd, the governor's spokeswoman.
The move follows a Free Press investigation that revealed widespread problems with how medical care is delivered to the state's 50,000 inmates, including the Aug. 6 death of a mentally ill inmate who had spent most of his last four days in four-point restraints.
The review won't be done by an agency within state government, Boyd said. "It should be an independent review," she said.
The Corrections Department has asked the National Institute of Corrections in Washington, D.C., a U.S. Department of Justice agency, to advise Michigan on how to review the health care system, which covers nearly 50 prisons, spokesman Russ Marlan said.
Neither Marlan nor Boyd could say when the review would begin or how long it would take.
"We want to move as quickly as we can," Boyd said.
The review will cover the entire $190-million-a-year prison health care system, including a $70-million contract with Missouri-based Correctional Medical Services Inc., and the additional $90 million a year the state spends on mental health services, Marlan said.
"This will include everything," Marlan said. "It will cover CMS, our employees, our interaction with the Department of Community Health, and both the mental and physical aspects of health care."
Any reviewing body should include prisoner advocates, said Sandra Bailiff Girard, executive director of Prison Legal Services of Michigan.
"The department showed no interest in this prior to these stories," Girard said. "There's a tendency among professionals to discount prisoner perspectives."
Problems with prison health care are long-standing. State prisons in Jackson have been under a federal consent decree since 1985 to improve medical care and other conditions. But prisoner advocates say health care has worsened since 2000, when CMS took over the contract for primary care. Prison officials and the company have maintained that CMS has performed adequately.
"We certainly have participated in reviews of inmate health care in other states and generally work well with those type of procedures," CMS spokesman Ken Fields said Monday.
The Free Press found widespread problems with misdiagnosis, delayed or denied treatments and inadequate accommodations for people with disabilities. Many of the problems are documented in hundreds of pages of court rulings filed in federal court.
The cases that sparked the review include the death of Timothy Joe Souders, a 21-year-old mentally ill inmate who was sentenced to 1-4 years for resisting arrest and assault. He died Aug. 6 after being tethered to his bed in a hot isolation cell for most of four days.
In another case, doctors failed to treat a cancerous polyp in Lloyd Byron Martell, 41, who was sentenced to 1-4 years for fleeing a police officer.
Martell was released last week -- sent home to die.
Another inmate, Martinique Stoudemire, 27, who is serving 11-30 years for her part as a driver in several armed robberies committed by her brother, had both lower legs amputated after doctors reportedly ignored symptoms related to lupus and blood problems.
Contact JEFF GERRITT at 313-222-6585 or gerritt@freepress.com.
Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.