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| Settlement requires prison to revise care for HIV inmates |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 05/27/2004 |
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A settlement in a lawsuit by HIV-positive inmates, who claimed they were not given adequate medical care at Limestone state prison, requires Alabama Department of Corrections' medical provider to hire an additional HIV nurse and allow an independent medical consultant to review the inmates' health care conditions. The settlement, reached after months of negotiations mediated by Magistrate Judge John Ott, was approved Wednesday in Birmingham. DOC spokesman Brian Corbett said the department still maintains that the treatment and housing of HIV prisoners prior to the 2002 suit was adequate, but that the "cost and risk of continuing litigation was not in the best interest of the state." The settlement introduces an additional full-time nurse to serve as an HIV coordinator who would direct an infection control program and arrange the HIV inmates' medical care, including monitoring progress of treatment and educating the men on HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. Prison Health Services, DOC's current medical provider, already has physicians and an HIV specialist treating Limestone's HIV inmates. The DOC switched from its previous medical provider, NaphCare, Inc., to PHS after the four prisoners filed the suit in federal district court in Birmingham. The court has since dropped NaphCare as a defendant. "One of the challenges in the negotiations was that in the middle of the lawsuit, there was change in providers," said Ken Palombo, vice president of PHS's legal department, who was involved in negotiating the settlement. "There was a lot of things the plaintiffs wanted and we said, 'No problem, we do it anyway.'" The DOC and attorneys from the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights, who represented the plaintiffs' interests in the settlement negotiations, have also appointed an independent medical consultant experienced in correctional health care and HIV to tour the prison four times a year for two years. |
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