Legislators, ACLU to look into allegations of dangerously poor prison health care<\/p>\n
The Santa Fe Reporter<\/span><\/a> detailed last month allegations that the company providing health care in the state\u2019s prisons may have altered records and is providing dangerously poor care to inmates.<\/p>\n In an in-depth and investigative series of articles, Dan Frosch<\/span><\/a> of the Reporter pieced together the first comprehensive look at the changes Wexford Health Services, a Pennsylvania-based company, has made since Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s administration brought in the company to cut costs.<\/p>\n In addition to the allegations of possible altering of records, six former employees allege that \u201cWexford staff improperly doled out prescription drugs to inmates; canceled inmates\u2019 medical appointments because of staff shortages; and, to save money, failed to send sick inmates off-site to hospitals expeditiously,\u201d according to the most recent article<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, state Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, and other legislators plan to take a hard look at the situation. So does the American Civil Liberties Union.<\/p>\n The Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee<\/span><\/a>, which Cervantes co-chairs along with Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, will meet in Hobbs on Oct. 19 and 20 and will discuss the Wexford contract, according to the Reporter.<\/p>\n Cervantes told the Reporter concerns raised in its articles prompted the discussion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe issues (the Reporter) has raised have not come before our committee recently. Inevitably, you get a perception that the management wants you to see, but we want to go beyond that,\u201d Cervantes said.<\/p>\n He expects Wexford and state officials to answer questions from legislators, and asked that others with concerns about the system come forward.<\/p>\n Peter Simonson, executive director of the ACLU-New Mexico, told the newspaper his office is reviewing the newspaper\u2019s reports to determine whether there have been violations of inmates\u2019 civil rights.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been aware of Wexford\u2019s poor services, and we\u2019re examining the issue to see if we should consider litigation,\u201d Simonson told the newspaper.<\/p>\n You can read the articles in the Reporter\u2019s excellent series by clicking here<\/span><\/a>, here<\/span><\/a> and here<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Legislators, ACLU to look into allegations of dangerously poor prison health care The Santa Fe Reporter detailed last month allegations that the company providing health care in the state\u2019s prisons may have altered records and is providing dangerously poor care to inmates. In an in-depth and investigative series of articles, Dan Frosch of the Reporter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}