Medication Mix-Up at Mo. Women's Prison Raises Questions

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By Kansas City Star

Published: 07/21/2003

At least a dozen women inmates at the Vandalia, Mo., prison were given the wrong anti-depressant medication last week, sending them to a hospital.
Two or three of the women were held at the hospital in Audrain County overnight, but all are now back performing their normal prison duties, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Corrections said.
The nurse who dispensed the incorrect medication worked for Correctional Medical Services, a private firm that has a contract to provide all medical care at Missouri's 21 prisons. The nurse has been suspended, and the Missouri Department of Corrections is investigating.
A special departmental team is to meet with the inmate council at the eastern Missouri women's prison to discuss continuing concerns about medical care there.
Two inmates -- both from the Kansas City area -- have died at Vandalia this year, the most recent one on July 2.
The American Civil Liberties Union of St. Louis is looking into conditions at the prison, and the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice has reportedly made inquiries, although the department will not confirm that.
'Obviously it (the prison) is not functioning correctly,' said Sister Fran Buschell, who coordinates prison ministries for the Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City. 'I don't really know what the problem is. I think that's what people are trying to determine.'
In last Friday's incident, an undetermined number of persons who were supposed to receive a tablet of Prozac, an anti-depressant, may have received instead another psychotropic drug called Sinequan, said Ken Fields, a spokesman for Correctional Medical Services.
Both drugs are anti-depressants, but the Physician's Desk Reference Web site says people switching from Prozac to Sinequan should 'wait at least five weeks after your last dose of Prozac before starting Sinequan.'
All of the women who may have received the wrong drug were evaluated by the medical staff, and 13 were taken to a hospital. At least two were admitted, and four others were kept for observation, Fields said. Sinequan has a sedative effect that leaves the body over time, he said.
The nun said she had been contacted by the Department of Justice about complaints it had received from inmate families about the Vandalia prison before Friday's incident. A Justice Department spokesman said he could neither confirm nor deny that an inquiry was in progress.
Tim Kniest, spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said state officials continually monitor the quality of service provided by Correctional Medical Services. He said a new five-year contract with the company, expanded to include mental health services, began in December.

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