Negligent Private Prison Healthcare Companies...

Many states such as Florida have turned over healthcare services to private, for profit
companies, such as Prison Health Services and Correctional Health Services.  Over the past
decade multiple lawsuits have been filed against private prison healthcare companies due to the
neglect or inadequate care of prisoners seeking medical attention from doctors and nurses
employed by private prison healthcare companies.  Often prisoners in  Florida jails, detention
centers and stockades are turned away and labeled fakers when seeking medical attention.  The
delays and gaps in treatment and medication for inmates under private prison healthcare
companies put prisoners at great risk.  Since 1992, at least 15 inmates have died in 11 Florida
jails in cases where Prison Health appears to have provided substandard or inadequate care to
prisoners.

Attorneys from our Boca Raton and Clewiston offices will file lawsuits by inmates against
negligent private prison healthcare companies in all Florida prisons and jails, including:

Broward Correctional Institute
Charlotte Correctional Institute
Dade Correctional Institute
Desoto Annex
Everglades Correctional Institute
Glades Correctional Institute
Hardee Correctional Institute
Hendry Correctional Institute
Indian River Correctional Institute
Martin Correctional Institute
Moore Haven Correctional Facility
Okeechobee Correctional Institute
South Florida Reception Center
Dade County Jail
Metro West Detention Center
Women's Detention Center
Broward County Jail
The Jose V. Conte Facility
North Broward Bureau
Stockade Facility (Fort Lauderdale)
  
Our trial attorneys will carefully spend time consulting with you in evaluating your case. If it appears to have merit, we will obtain the medical records, evaluate them and have expert
witnesses evaluate them.  We will provide you the answers along the way as to exactly what
happened and why it happened and continue to advise you as to how your case should best be
litigated and resolved.

If you or a loved one has been injured due to negligence of a private healthcare company in
Florida, contact us by completing the form below,  clicking
here or call us at 877-SEE-
JUSTICE  to set up a
free consultation with Timothy C. Nies, Esq., one of our attorneys to
discuss your case.  
Howard S. Grossman, P.A.
Prison Healthcare
Litigation
1-877-SEE-JUSTICE
877-SEE-JUSTICE
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Describe your prisoner
neglect claim*:
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.
Jail inmate goes untreated, ends up in intensive care
By TODD RUGER
todd.ruger@heraldtribune.com

SARASOTA -- Orestes "Rusty" Rendon started his 90-day sentence for driving
without a license at the Sarasota County jail. He finished it Nov. 14 in a hospital
intensive care unit -- unable to speak, eat or walk.

Hit on the head with a branch and stung more than a dozen times by hornets while
working on a road crew, Rendon filled out forms requesting to see a doctor as his
eyes crossed and the pain in his head worsened.

It took at least six days for him to get to the doctor, who immediately sent Rendon
to the emergency room at Sarasota Memorial Hospital..

Before that, nurses had been giving him Tylenol.

The nurses "thought it was a migraine," Rendon wrote in a notepad from his
hospital bed two weeks ago, still unable to speak or walk.

"They think everyone is trying to get one over on them, that I was trying to get out
of work."

Complaints like Rendon's have been made repeatedly against Prison Health
Services Inc., a private company contracted to provide medical treatment to
inmates across the country, including at county jails in Sarasota, Manatee and
Charlotte.

There have been at least 15 inmate deaths in 11 Florida jails in cases where the
company appears to have provided inadequate care since 1992, a New York
Times investigation reported early this year.

The three local counties have recently extended contracts or say they're satisfied
with Prison Health Services despite the national reports and several local cases
in which the company gave questionable patient care.

One former Sarasota jail inmate sued in federal court in July, saying nurses
accused him of "faking it" when he told them he felt paralyzed after being thrown
head-first into a wall by a corrections officer.

Doctors later found he had severed two vertebrae, and he now suffers from
near-complete paralysis, with some use of his upper extremities, court records
show.

In another federal lawsuit, filed this month, an inmate in Hillsborough County says
her newborn son died in 2004 after nurses from Prison Health Services
dismissed her labor pains and sobbing as "mood swings."

She gave birth over a jail toilet, the umbilical cord wrapped around her son's neck.
Nurses who were untrained and unfamiliar with resuscitation and care of newborn
infants initially refused to call 911, the suit claims.

And in Manatee County, nurses did not provide treatment to an inmate who died
in 2004 after having four epileptic seizures over two days.

Rendon's sister, Victoria Rendon, said that as her brother lost control of his eyes,
he started to realize something was seriously wrong but he couldn't persuade the
nurses to let him see a doctor.

"He was perfectly OK before this happened," she said while visiting her brother,
who remains at Sarasota Memorial Hospital after spending nearly a month in
intensive care. "Now he's like this, for driving without a license."

Criticism and response

Prison Health Services defends its reputation. The company is one of several
private firms that take over jail or prison health care -- and the resulting lawsuits --
from government officials.

Prison Health Services says it provides health care to a jail and prison population
that has its challenges, including a high rate of diseases and conditions that may
have gone undiagnosed or untreated.

Many of the patients have kidney and liver problems from drug or alcohol abuse.

"The patients we treat typically have had less access to health care and they are
less healthy than the general population," said Susan Morgenstern, a Prison
Health Services spokeswoman.

The New York Times published a report in February showing that Prison Health
Services' medical treatment likely led to dozens of deaths nationwide. Judges
and sheriffs criticized the health-care company. Families and whistle-blowers are
suing.

Morgenstern said Friday that 76 percent of the inmate lawsuits filed against the
company are dismissed by the courts before going to trial, and the vast majority of
the remaining suits result in decisions in favor of Prison Health Services.

And the company gets sued at a rate 70 percent lower than overall rates of
lawsuits against other prison health care providers across the nation, as
determined by the U.S. Department of Justice, she said.

"Our dedicated health-care professionals work hard every day to provide quality
care for inmates," she said. "We're committed to quality care for our patients and
that's our focus."

"It's a tough, tough job."

Sarasota County paid approximately $2.3 million this year for inmate health care
at the jail, which averages about 800 inmates a day. Charlotte County is paying
$1.4 million for about 485 inmates a day and Manatee County is paying $4.2
million for about 1,400 inmates a day.

Manatee County officials say Prison Health Services was the only company to bid
when the contract went up for bid in 2002. The county plans to extend the contract
through March 2007 before accepting bids again.

Charlotte County said it has contracted with the company for about 10 years and
is satisfied with its services.

Sarasota extended its three-year contract for a fourth year, through September
2006, and has not yet decided whether to extend the contract for another year
after that.

Inmate: Delay made it worse

There is no known cause or cure for Guillain-Barré syndrome, which doctors now
believe affected Rendon. However, therapies can lessen the severity of it and
accelerate the recovery in most patients.

"It's not the cause of the disease but the fact that I was under their care when it did
happen," Rendon wrote. "This is a major disease ... might have some lasting
problems."

The disease is rare, and can be triggered by an infection. It causes the body's
immune system to attack the nervous system for up to four weeks.

How long it takes to get treatment can affect the severity of the damage, said
Sarasota neurologist Dr. Gregory Hanes.

Some people get a mild case that needs no treatment. In severe cases, people
die if they are not put on a respirator. A full recovery can take several years, he
said.

"The sooner you stop it, the sooner the body can then mend itself," Hanes said.
The longer treatment is delayed, "then your body has to recover from a worse
place."

Rendon remembers getting hit on the head with a tree branch while on a work
crew and says he lost consciousness for about five minutes. That was the day
before he got stung at least 12 times by hornets and requested medical help on
Oct. 17, he said.

A jail medical record shows he was given doses of Benadryl and Tylenol for three
days.

Those jail records also show he put in two more medical requests specifically
complaining about his head pain and vision on Oct. 23 and Oct. 24. His eyes
were starting to cross, he said.

Rendon told visiting family that he had double vision and headaches and had
been putting in a request every day to see the doctor. He did not go out on the
work crew that week.

By Oct. 25, Rendon's eyes were severely crossed and he told family he feared
something was seriously wrong with him, but he only received Tylenol from the jail
staff, he said.

Rendon remembers requesting the doctor every day, but said he didn't get
examined by a doctor until Oct. 29 -- and the doctor immediately sent him to the
hospital.

"He told me it scared him," Rendon wrote.

On a physician's order sheet from the jail provided to the family, the jail doctor
wrote, "Send to SMHx -- STAT."

When Rendon was admitted to the hospital on Oct. 29, the doctors thought he had
suffered a stroke or had meningitis.

Jail medicine

Inmates at the Sarasota jail sometimes don't see a doctor for several days
because doctors have so many requests to see them, the sergeant in charge of
the jail's medical area said.

"There's so many people here," Sgt. Patrick Smith said.

The two doctors who are subcontracted to provide exams at the jail are there four
or five times a week, Smith said. There are six nurses on duty during the week
and four nurses on duty on the weekends.

Jail correction officers are allowed to call for nurses or doctors in emergency
situations, but otherwise inmates must fill out a request form to see a doctor.

Sarasota County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. Chuck Lesaltato said corrections
officers are not qualified to make medical calls and have to go "based on what
professionals are telling us in that field.

"That's why we have medical staff there," Lesaltato said. "We go based on what
they're telling us."

Prison Health Services Inc. declined to comment on Rendon's case, citing patient
confidentiality laws, but company officials said they would look into his situation
after the newspaper provided a signed release from Rendon on Wednesday.

Rendon said he'll have to stay at Sarasota Memorial Hospital through Christmas.
He faces what could be years of therapy to regain the ability to walk, talk, swallow
and control his eyes.

Victoria Rendon said she wants the county to pay for her brother's hospital
treatment and his rehabilitation. Those costs are high, and will continue for
rehabilitation and prescriptions even after he is sent home, she said.

Real or faking it?

Several lawsuits filed against Prison Health Services claim nurses accused
prisoners of faking illnesses out of boredom or to avoid work.

At the Sarasota jail, inmates must pay $5 from their commissary accounts per
nurse visit unless it is an emergency, Smith said.

Other agencies have also instituted a fee for inmate health services in response
to what's known in the business as "malingering," said Edward Harrison,
president of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care in Chicago.

It happens with some amount of frequency, but there are no studies to show it
happens more often in jails than in emergency rooms or public health clinics in the
"free" world, Harrison said.

But instead of charging for nurse visits, the commission encourages infirmaries to
try to find out why a prisoner is faking, and get them to stop.

Smith and Lesaltato said there were no changes in Sheriff's Office policies or
medical services after the 2003 incident with the inmate who had two fractured
vertebrae.

A former corrections officer, Matthew O'Kon, was acquitted on a charge he
intentionally slammed Gerrese Daniels into the wall of the Sarasota County jail on
June 5, 2003.

Two nurses examined him and determined he was "faking it" when talking about
not being able to move his legs, because his arms and legs moved without any
response of pain and because he moved his legs when a sharp object was stuck
in his foot, the lawsuit claims.

A jail nurse cleared the 22-year-old Daniels to continue in a prison transport van,
though he had no feeling in much of his body, according to reports.

Upon arrival at the Central Florida Reception Center, state medical staff airlifted
him to an Orlando hospital, where it was discovered he had severed the fourth
and fifth vertebrae in his back, the lawsuit claims.

In 2004, PHS fired two nurses and its medical director at the Manatee County jail
after the death of an inmate who should have been taken to a hospital.

Nurses watched for two days as the unresponsive prisoner, Tony Myrick, had at
least four seizures and fell critically ill. Myrick, 41, died in the jail infirmary.

PHS officials said then that with more than 1,500 inmates to care for, "unfortunate
outcomes" are part of the business.

Also last year, PHS fired a nurse practitioner and reprimanded two nurses at a
Hillsborough County jail over the death of an infant born there.

An inmate had complained of abdominal pains for nearly 12 hours before giving
birth, but no one called 911 until after the baby was born. The baby boy died
before reaching Tampa General Hospital.

In Charlotte County, Prison Health Services fired a jail nurse who was arrested in
November on a charge that she brought prescription drugs to an inmate she
planned to marry.
TIMOTHY C. NIES, ESQ.
Howard S. Grossman, P.A.
1098 N.W. Boca Raton Boulevard
Boca Raton, Florida 33432
Toll-free: 800-940-8048
Phone: 561-368-8048
Fax: 561-391-1193
E-mail: Click
here
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