Illinois lawmakers and reform advocates are calling for stronger oversight of the state’s new prison health care provider following a Sun-Times report.
Last Wednesday, the Sun-Times published a months-long investigation examining Centurion Health, one of the nation’s largest correctional medicine companies, which was recently hired by Illinois officials despite having a record of providing inadequate health care.
People incarcerated in other state prisons and jails across the country allege Centurion was deliberately indifferent to their health needs, and that they were repeatedly ignored, denied care and misdiagnosed by Centurion medical staff, according to a Sun-Times examination of more than 100 lawsuits, a Justice Department investigation and state audits.
“It’s sadly not surprising,” said State Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, a longtime advocate for improving Illinois prisons. “It’s really upsetting that we live in one of the wealthiest countries and we have such an inhumane system. … It’s a representation of the American health care system at its worst and we’re willing to do it on people with no power.”
Lawmakers and advocates told the Sun-Times the Illinois Department of Corrections needs to be held accountable for ensuring the roughly 29,000 people locked in Illinois prisons are given adequate health care. And the Illinois General Assembly and Gov. JB Pritzker have a responsibility to strengthen that oversight, they added.
“These are conversations that have been had” among lawmakers, said State Sen. Lakesia Collins, D-Chicago. “These are conversations that need to turn into actual policy, and they need to be implemented and enforced.”
The allegations against Centurion reveal a pattern: People in prisons and jails repeatedly complain about a health issue, they’re ignored by correctional and medical staff, and their condition worsens to the point of dangerous complications or even death.
Those conditions included: a spinal cord infection festering in a man’s back until he could no longer walk; chronic hepatitis ignored until it permanently damaged a man’s liver; prostate cancer ignored until it became terminal; and high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes left unmanaged until patients had heart attacks and strokes.
But Centurion Health isn’t the only company with a history of substandard health care, advocates and lawmakers said. The state’s previous provider, Wexford Health Sources, had a long track record of providing poor care, neglect and preventable deaths.
“You got rid of one bad company just to pay another bad company to do the same exact thing that Wexford was doing,” said James Swansey, the associate policy director for the nonprofit Restore Justice.
“There is no accountability,” he added. “We keep paying these companies to take care of the incarcerated individuals, who really can’t take care of themselves. So it’s the responsibility of the Department of Corrections, and they’re coming up short in every aspect as far as health care.”
Swansey also said state lawmakers need to get more involved to ensure transparency and oversight of the private health care providers and IDOC.
A spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment. Pritzker’s office also did not respond to requests for comment.
Peters said he and his legislative colleagues must provide more oversight of the system, and are still working out specific measures to hold IDOC as accountable as other state agencies.
“There is so much oversight in long-term care in Illinois. There are also systems of accountability built into the [Illinois Department of Children and Family Services] that we can use as examples,” Peters said.
Jennifer Vollen-Katz, the executive director of the John Howard Association, said lawmakers have options to improve prison health care in Illinois.
One choice Vollen-Katz suggested was banning private vendors from operating in the state’s correctional facilities. In 1990, the Illinois General Assembly banned private companies from running state prisons.
“They could extend that law to health care providers,” Vollen-Katz said.
In place of private companies, the state could develop a public health approach to prison medical care and get state-funded public health institutions to treat people in prisons.
“Public health is not motivated by profit,” Vollen-Katz said.
Collins said better prison health care would make for a smoother reentry to society for people in prison — the vast majority of whom will eventually be released.
“These are people who can be rehabilitated,” she said, “these are systems that can change.”
This story was produced as part of a fellowship with the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism.