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| Inmate's New $1 Million Heart Beats Behind Bars |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 02/11/2002 |
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A convicted felon serving 14 years in a California prison has been given a heart transplant -- an operation that could cost taxpayers as much as $1 million and spur debate over prison health care costs, officials said recently. The 31-year-old man, who has not been named to protect his confidentiality, was given a new heart at Stanford Medical Center earlier this month after he was matched with a donor. California Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Heimerich said the operation -- the first heart transplant in state prison history -- was likely to raise fresh questions over how California deals with medical care for its huge prison population. 'We're certainly aware that this is going to raise some eyebrows,' Heimerich said, noting that the entire procedure, including transport, drugs, and after-care, could end up costing as much as $1 million. 'But the heart transplant was deemed medically necessary by physicians at Stanford, not by us, to save this guy's life,' Heimerich said. 'It's something we wrestle with but the problem is not ours to resolve. We are mandated and committed to providing medically necessary care to inmates.' Prison health care experts said that transplants for inmates were extremely rare, but would likely increase in an aging national prison population plagued with debilitating diseases such as Hepatitis C, which can lead to the necessity for a liver transplant. 'It is going to be extremely costly,' said Scott Chavez of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC), a nonprofit group that examines prison health care issues. 'Taxpayers are going to be asked to pay an unbelievable amount of money. It will definitely break the budgets of most state correctional departments.' |
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