Corizon's prisoners dying younger from suicide and "natural causes".

Prior to this latest suicide at Eyman, I was concerned about the number of successful suicides of late - most specifically, since Corizon took over. Take a look at what I found when I examined the DOC's death reports from January 2012- October 2013 (which encompasses 6 months of the DOC administering health care, then 8 months of wexford, and 8 months of Corizon). The average age of death is getting dramatically younger (even when controlled for suicides and homicides), and there are WAY more suicides now. Do the numbers yourself. And check out the AFSC-Tucson's report again: DEATH YARDS. There's a lot to it.

Most of the suicides are happening in single cells, and appear to be related to prisoenrs having a poorly managed serious mental illness and/or suiciding for fear of being on the GP yards - but those conclusions require more study, once investigations are complete and state records are available. 

I'm concerned about the suicides and the connection there may be between them and the frequent reports I've received that prisoners on psychiatric medications have had thier meds abruptly stopped by Corizon doctors, and have been changed to less effective meds than they were previously on, including some that really aren't even used  anymore in the free world due to their side effect profiles, like thorazine. 

In the meantime, Eyman prisoners' visits with their mental health professionals are being done by video-conferencing after theyr'e all herded - chained - into a big cell together. I can't tell if the mental health reivews are actually then conducted en masse, or if they are provided some smeblance of privacy but only get about 5 mins of the provider's time. I believe Donna Hamm is trying to sort out exactly how psychiatric evaluations are beign done for maximum security prisoners at Eyman. 

In any case, given the number of suicides at Eyman in the past year, I think they should re-evaluate the effectiveness of whatever it is they're doing there by way of mental health treatment...

-----------------

JAN 2012 - June 2012 : AZ DOC Health care

Jerry McCoy, 53, ADC #108159, died Jan 16 from complications of Hodgkin’s lymphoma
Alfonso Farmer, 23, ADC #219587 died Jan 22 from an apparent suicide
Alvin Rhodes, 64, ADC #264597, died Jan 22 from complications of cancer
Harry Gardner, 82, ADC #167824, died Jan 20 from complications of lung cancer
Forrest Day, 19, ADC #258301, died Jan 27 from a suspected suicide

Francisco Leon, 64, ADC #90634, died Feb 13 from end stage renal disease
James Toppin, 63, ADC #216346, died Feb 12  from apparent natural causes
Daniel Porter, 48, ADC #61424, died Feb 20 from water intoxication
Clifford Fritz, 41, ADC #129311, died Feb 23 from cancer.

Edward Baeza, 56, ADC #43508, died Mar 11 from apparent natural causes
Cesar Carbajal, 35, ADC #268481 died mar 15 from unknown causes
Nolan Pierce, 23, ADC #245734, died Mar 16 from a possible homicide
David Hunt, 34, ADC #109305, died Mar 25  from medication OD
George Bredemann, 69, ADC #83222, died Mar 31 from apparent natural causes

Shon Wilder, 33, ADC #129144, died April 20 from a possible homicide
Isabelle Trujillo, 61, ADC #076085, died April 24 from apparent natural causes
Joseph Venegas, 29, ADC #185473, died April 25 from unknown causes (pneumonia)
David Washburn, 69, ADC #098366, died April 27 from apparent natural causes

Robert Ginan, 69, ADC #220296, died May 7 from apparent natural causes
Owen Vilan, 54, ADC #242276, died May 8 from apparent natural causes
Enrique Orozco, 46, ADC #119841, died May 22 from apparent natural causes
Robert Charo, 61, ADC #049825, died May 23 from apparent natural causes
T Ray Washington, 41, ADC #240344, died May 25 from apparent natural causes
Candelario Baca, 69, ADC #039760, died May 30 from apparent natural causes

Louis Jernigan, 67, ADC #30249, died June 4 from apparent natural causes
Philip Hawes, 64, ADC #253330, died June 4 from apparent natural causes
George Phillips, 69, ADC #058612, died June 13 from apparent natural causes
Herbert Shockey, 77, ADC #025634, died June 21 from apparent natural causes
Xaxier Milea, 39, ADC #255646, died June 26 from apparent natural causes

JULY 2012 - MARCH 2013 : WEXFORD

Nelson Johnson, 31, ADC #143345 died July 1 from apparent suicide
Richard Johnsen, 58, ADC #052572, died July 16, from apparent natural causes
Daniel Salazar, 55, ADC #129065, died July 19 from apparent natural causes
Lawrence Tashquinth, 50, ADC #229672, died July 19  from apparent natural causes
Richard Olivas, 43, ADC #128627, died July 21 from apparent natural causes
Jose Garcia-Morfin, 33, ADC #233520, died July 24 from apparent natural causes
Richard Wojcik, 56, ADC #232593, died July 24 from apparent natural causes
Rock Hannaford, 56, ADC #261578, died July 30 from apparent natural causes

Gregg Large, 48, ADC #247449, died Aug 1 from apparent natural causes
Thomas Truitt, 48, ADC #047727, died Aug 4 from apparent natural causes
Robert Moss, 73, ADC #102474, died Aug 11 from apparent natural causes
Frank Brown, 65, ADC #149637, died Aug 13 from apparent natural causes
Sotero Delgado, 66, ADC #273820, died Aug 16 from apparent natural causes
James Gordon, 55, ADC #140687, died Aug 26 from apparent natural causes
Dixie Arguello, 51, ADC #269814, died Aug 27 from apparent natural causes
Nicholas Martinez, 33, ADC #171587, died Aug 30 from a possible overdose

Darrell Robertson, 33, ADC #258053, died Sept 10 from apparent natural causes
James Makal, 80, ADC #027216, died Sept 13 from apparent natural causes
Ronald Smith, 75, ADC #092788, died Sept 22 from apparent natural causes
Augustine Alvarez, 71, ADC #085367, died Sept 23 from apparent natural causes
Richard Johnson, 60, ADC #232783, died Sept 28 from apparent natural causes

Donald Wisto, 36, ADC #110526, died Oct 7 from unknown causes
Anthony Brown, 43, ADC #077701, died Oct 8 from apparent natural causes
Lonnie Prickett, 63, ADC #073521, died Oct 9 from apparent natural causes
Carroll Sanders, 56, ADC #196447, died Oct 9 from apparent natural causes
Michael Atkins, 48, ADC #263379, died Oct 18 from apparent natural causes
John Mihalec, 77, ADC #104669, died Oct 25 from apparent natural causes
Dallas Richie, 62, ADC #032104, died Oct 27 from apparent natural causes
Alan Cook, 65, ADC #155358, died Oct 28 from apparent natural causes
Cipriano Vigil, 73, ADC #107377, died Oct 31 from apparent natural causes

Timothy Ben, 29, ADC #186585, died Nov 5 from an apparent suicide
John Allie, 53, ADC #042977, died Nov 12 from apparent natural causes
John Beck, 64, ADC #104144, died Nov 14 from apparent natural causes
Jesus Sanchez, 39, ADC #092083, died November 19 from apparent natural causes
Gerald Anani, 58, ADC #269346, died Nov 25 from apparent natural causes
Shane Moulton, 44, ADC #112871, died Nov 25 from apparent natural causes

Monty Hanan, 63, ADC #136053, died Dec 1 from apparent natural causes
Arnold Toliver, 48, ADC #125678, died Dec 5 from apparent natural causes
David Anthony, 64, ADC #184113, died Dec 7 from apparent natural causes
John Ruelas, 46, ADC #059693, died Dec 7 from apparent natural causes
Donald McKay, 57, ADC #270224, died Dec 20 from apparent natural causes
Darryl Gray, 65, ADC #032890, died Dec 25 from apparent natural causes

Richard Glassel, 74, ADC #172967, died Jan 15 from apparent natural causes
William Horton, 48, ADC #062422, died Jan 12 from apparent natural causes
Gary Dixon, 50, ADC #106531, died Jan 28 from apparent natural causes
Nathan Hartman, 36, ADC #156838, died Jan 28 from apparent natural causes
Charles Dawson, 56, ADC #067938, died Jan 29 from unknown causes
Gary Pierce, 69, ADC #041952, died Jan 30 from unknown causes

Robert Akers, 70, ADC #242962, died Feb 1 from unknown causes
Christina Black, 52, ADC #145562, died Feb 12 from an apparent suicide
Robert Sweepe, 63, ADC #093822, died Feb 17 from unknown causes
Bobby Crockett, 49, ADC #106800, died Feb 18  from apparent natural causes
Ernie Lopez, 55, ADC #133681, died Feb 18 from apparent natural causes
Christian Frost, 38, ADC #130811, died Feb 22 from a possible homicide
Rowdy Ferns, 43, ADC #143370, died February 26 from apparent natural causes

MARCH - October 2013 : CORIZON

Vernon Davidson, 58, ADC #127734, died March 3 from apparent natural causes
Rafael Guevara, 23, ADC #254097, died March 11 from heroin overdose
Scott Broadhead, 57, ADC #035145, died March 17 from unknown causes
Kevin Pate, 54, ADC #091377, died March 14 from unknown causes
Jesse Cornejo, 24, ADC #246859, died March 16 from unknown causes
Johnny Lopez, 52, ADC #079275, died March 17 from apparent natural causes
James Smith, 51, ADC #116912, died March 27 from apparent natural causes
William Driver, 72, ADC #162813, died March 29 from apparent natural causes

Kristian Brown, 49, ADC #182532, died April 1  from apparent natural causes
Gary Church, 53, ADC #039345, died April 1  from unknown causes
Billy Lee, 54, ADC #037490, died April 8 from apparent natural causes
Charles Jeffrey, 38, ADC #212819, died April 10 from apparent natural causes
Alberto Jimenez, 36, ADC #138779, died April 14 from apparent natural causes
Joaquin Tamayo, 41, ADC #106163, died April 22 from an apparent suicide
Russell Clark, 53, ADC #059997, died April 25 from apparent natural causes

Paul Henderson, 22, ADC #247636, died May 1 from an apparent suicide
Karl Narten, 82, ADC #024550, died May 6 from apparent natural causes
Milo Stanley, 50, ADC #064794, died May 10 from an apparent suicide
Anthony Martinez, 65, ADC #085596, died May 14 from apparent natural causes
Bobby Smith, 72, ADC #065084, died May 19 from apparent natural causes
Rose Hodges, 49, ADC #113364, died May 20 from apparent natural causes

Mackie McCabe, 57, ADC #049597, died June 2 from apparent natural causes
John Ray, 54, ADC #118850, died June 7 from apparent natural causes
John Jones, 63, ADC #054741, died June 17 from an apparent homicide
Fenton Skaggs, 38, ADC #198534, died June 17 from unknown causes
Dale Hausner, 40, ADC #240702, died June 19 from apparent suicide
Henry Billings, 80, ADC #218617, died June 23 from apparent natural causes

David Valenzuela, 56, ADC #063167, died July 1 from apparent natural causes
Theron Chambers, 72, ADC #040915, died July 3 from apparent natural causes
Galen Lindstrom, 62, ADC #075515, died July 10 from unknown causes
Thomas Herrera, 57, ADC #078507, died July 13 from apparent natural causes
Patrick Hoppes, 48, ADC #242119, died July 17 from an apparent suicide
Alvis Smith, 59, ADC #031588, died July 26 from apparent natural causes.

George Malone, 69, ADC #086899, died August 2 from apparent natural causes
Javier Gonzalez, 23, ADC #217498, died August 14 from an apparent suicide.
Van Branch, 53, ADC #072628, died August 14 from apparent natural causes
George Fierros, 58, ADC #058206, died August 22 from apparent natural causes
Miguel Sanchez, 28, ADC #270127, died August 27 from an apparent suicide.
Marco Chavez, 34, ADC #187239, died August 31 from apparent natural causes

Shawn Southworth, 37, ADC #257109, died September 23 from apparent natural causes
Harold Batista, 21, ADC #270988, died September 25 from unknown causes

Bennie Harris, 54, ADC #067481, died October 1 from apparent natural causes
Richard Hildenbrand, 80, ADC #140990, died October 2nd from apparent natural causes
Gregory Schlundt, 50, ADC #054406, died October 3rd from apparent natural causes
Kevin Wirts, 45, ADC #258690, died October 7th from apparent natural causes
Rusty Anderson, 42, ADC #222642, died October 9th from apparent natural causes
Kenneth Gifford, 48, ADC #128657, died October 9th from apparent natural causes
Michael Melendez, 52, ADC #102559, died October 10th from apparent natural causes
Emmanuel Arline, 28, ADC #198483, died October 18th from apparent natural causes
Steven Ensslin, 40, ADC #090119, died October 19th from unknown causes.
Roosevelt Foster, 68, ADC #051942, died October 19th from apparent natural causes
Todd Hoke, 22, ADC #253951, died October 21 from an apparent suicide
Robert Maxwell, 46, ADC #065789, died October 23rd from apparent natural causes
Woody Trisky, 75, ADC #165447, died October 24th from apparent natural causes
Avtar Sidhu, 51, ADC #278273, died October 28th from apparent natural causes

AZ privatizing prison health care to destroy state pensions.

I already posted on this yesterday morning, but I just came across Bob Ortega's piece in the AZ Republic, which is worth sharing as well. Note how the legislature ordered this move regardless of whether or not it saves money (or kills prisoners) - they just want to screw state workers out of their retirement plans. That's classic John Kavanaugh for you. Feel free to write him at the AZ House and tell him what a swell guy he is. He's still the chair of the House Appropriations Committee; looking at the state of our state, that should tell you a lot. He also runs a criminal justice program at a community college - no wonder he wanted to gut spending on universities. God forbid anyone here should get too smart - he needs us to stay poor and stupid so we can keep filling and staffing the prisons he wants to privatize.

Anyway, welcome to AZ, Wexford - we aren't putting up with any more BS from prison health care providers, so you'd better do right by our people right the first time around, or we'll run you out of this state.

---------------------------

Arizona prisons' health care to be run by Pa. company

 Arizona Republic

 Bob Ortega

Apr. 3, 2012

Arizona's Department of Corrections awarded a $349 million, three-year contract Tuesday to privatize health care for prison inmates that will cost the state $5 million a year more than it spent in 2011.

The contract to privatize prison health care -- originally pushed by Rep. John Kavanagh as a way to save the state money -- was awarded to privately held Wexford Health Sources Inc. of Pittsburgh.

Wexford, which has previously lost contracts for poor service and was implicated in a 2008 payoff scandal in Illinois, bid $116.3million a year, $1.1million less than the second-place bid by Corizon Inc. of Brentwood, Tenn.

The contract, which is renewable for two additional years, was approved by Corrections Director Charles Ryan and reviewed by the Governor's Office before it was issued. Arizona spent $111.3 million last fiscal year on correctional health-care services for nearly 34,000 inmates in 10 state prisons.

Over the past three years, health-care spending by the Corrections Department has dropped nearly $30 million, in part because of a declining prison population and reduced staff levels.

After a prior effort to privatize prison health care failed last year, Kavanagh, Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, removed language from a bill that had required bidders to meet or better the Corrections Department's costs.

Despite the Wexford bid exceeding state costs to provide care, Kavanagh insists that, "in the long run, reducing pension costs" by eliminating hundreds of state employees through privatization saves the state money.

Lawmakers adopted legislation two years ago and revised it last year, requiring Corrections to privatize the health-care system regardless of whether it saves money.

However, Caroline Isaacs, director of the American Friends Service Committee's Tucson office, a prison-watchdog group, said, "This has never been about saving money; the real reason is that legislators are ideologically wedded to privatization and damn the evidence."

A Corrections spokesman would not comment on what will happen to about 600 state employees who work for the department's health-care division, but workers said they've been told that they will be interviewed for possible employment by Wexford.

Wexford spokeswoman Wendelyn Pekich declined to comment on whether Wexford will hire any Corrections employees. The Corrections spokesman said Wexford is expected to complete the transition to running health-care services by June 30.

Wexford, which provides health care under contract to 91,000 inmates in 100 jails and prisons in 10 states, was tied to a payoff scandal in Illinois. That state's director of corrections, Donald Snyder, served two years in federal prison after admitting he accepted a $30,000 bribe from a Wexford lobbyist to steer business to the company.

No Wexford officials were charged in the case. Wexford declined to comment on the bribery scandal.
The company also has had past problems meeting its contractual obligations. Clark County, Wash., declined to renew a contract with Wexford in 2009 at its county jail and juvenile-detention center after complaints that Wexford wasn't dispensing medications to inmates in a timely fashion, leading to psychological and behavioral problems with inmates on psychotropic drugs.

New Mexico terminated a statewide contract with Wexford in 2007 after an audit by that state's legislative finance committee found shortages of physicians, dentists and other prison medical staff and noted that the company had failed to issue timely reports on the deaths of 14 inmates the previous year.

Arizona hopes privatizing its prison health-care services will improve a system that has been criticized as inadequate.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Prison Law Office, a California-based prisoner's legal-advocacy group, filed suit in federal court last month charging that Arizona's Department of Corrections has denied adequate medical and mental-health care to inmates for weeks and months, even for life-threatening conditions.

The lawsuit says that understaffing, delays in providing medication and other problems have been persistent and systemic across all state prisons. The department has not responded in court to the suit and has declined to comment on it.

Dan Pochoda, the ACLU's Arizona director, said the Wexford contract won't affect the lawsuit or improvements in care that legal advocates for prisoners are demanding.

"The obligations on the state are the same," he said. "The Constitution is equally applicable whether the medical-care providers are direct employees of the state or contracted out to a private company."

The Department of Corrections said it will not release the contract document until Monday. Procurement officer Karen Ingram didn't give any reason for the delay.

However, if the contract provides the same terms as those spelled out under the request for proposals, Wexford will be audited quarterly and can be fined if it fails to meet performance standards spelled out in the contract, such as:

Completing a physical exam and mental-health assessment of all prisoners within two days of their arrival at prisons.

Triaging all inmates' health-care requests within 24 hours.

Completing referrals to a physician within seven days.

Maintaining adequate medical records.

Updating treatment plans and providing face-to-face assessments with psychiatric nurses at least every 30 days for seriously mentally ill inmates.

Having psychiatrists assess seriously mentally ill inmates on psychotropic medications at least every three months.

Developing re-entry plans for mentally ill inmates at least 30 days before they're discharged.

Such standards, if they are met, would be an improvement to the timeliness with which inmates receive medical and mental-health care, according to allegations in the ACLU-Prison Law Office suit.

There have been few national studies of the effect of privatizing correctional health care.

Kelly Bedard, an economist at the University of California-Santa Barbara who co-authored a 2007 study looking at privatization outcomes in 32 states, said that because private providers always have an incentive to save money and cut costs, the quality of care is highly dependent on how well a contract is written and on whether the state engages in meaningful, tough oversight.

Such oversight isn't common.

Bedard's study found that inmate deaths rise 2 percent for every 20 percent increase in privatization.