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| Report: Privatization improved state prison conditions |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 08/02/2004 |
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Health care that meets national standards is available to almost every Texas prison inmate, according to a report that civil rights activists call biased. The report, released last Wednesday, was based on medical records kept by prison system health care workers. "We think this is a success story," Dr. Ben Raimer, the report's lead author and vice president of community outreach for the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, told the Houston Chronicle in Wednesday's editions. Dr. John Stobo, UTMB president, co-authored the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The report says that increased medical staffing, falling death rates for AIDS and other diseases, and technology have also contributed to improved care. Dr. Newton Kendig, medical director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, wrote in an accompanying journal editorial that the Texas system's collaboration with academic medicine is a model for other states. But prisoner rights activists say the information in the report has not been verified by physicians outside the prison health care network. "It's a complete and total fraud," activist Ray Hill said. Hill, who hosts a radio program on prison issues, said one-third of the 200 letters he receives each week from Texas inmates concern problems with health care. A decade ago, just 40 percent of inmates received proper care and the state grappled with a federal court order to improve the deplorable conditions faced by prisoners, officials said. In 1993, the state gave the job of caring for prisoners to the UTMB at Galveston and Texas Tech University. The improved health care for inmates followed a successful federal lawsuit filed by inmate David Ruiz in 1974. |
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