Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism

DOC emails show officials were aware of prison health care problems years before taking over from UConn

  • Justice
  • by Kelan Lyons
  • November 13, 2020
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

Photo courtesy of WNPR

Cybulski Correctional Institution in Enfield.

A series of emails recently released in a federal lawsuit make clear Department of Correction officials were aware of the shortcomings in the state’s prison health care system in April 2016, two years before the DOC took over inmate health care from UConn’s Correctional Managed Health Care.

Top prison officials were so concerned about the shortcomings, the emails show, they privately assembled a team to improve the quality of care inmates were receiving from UConn, which at that point was nearly two decades into a no-bid contract with the DOC to provide those services. The goal of this special request, according to the DOC, was “to address some of the problems with CMHC care.”

The conclusions of this audit and another report, completed by a contractor hired by the DOC, were cited as reasons for the state ending its $140-million annual contract with UConn Health in 2018.

Initially, however, DOC officials recommended working with UConn to improve medical and mental health care in the state’s correctional facilities, proposing 10 immediate and long-term interventions

“These recommendations may be met with strong objections from CMHC, since they represent a major break from established practice,” wrote Dr. Kathleen Maurer, the former DOC medical director and head of Health and Addiction Services, in an April 19, 2016 email to Dr. Craig Burns, Dr. Thomas Kocienda and Andrea Reischerl, three higher-ups in charge of the department’s mental health services.

“However, to do this effectively, it would almost certainly require support from CMHC,” Maurer wrote. “We should try to work with CMHC to make this program operable.”

The state abandoned this effort a little over two years later and took over inmate health care on July 1, 2018.

The emails are part of a series of documents a federal judge ordered the state to release last week from an internal report on the state’s prison health care system. The state declined to comment on the emails.

UConn Health declined to comment on pending litigation, but denied they had delivered substandard care to incarcerated people during the two decades they treated patients in state correctional facilities. UConn Health also said the reasons its contract wasn’t renewed with the state was due to financial considerations.

“Even given the complex challenges of the prison system environment, UConn Health provided care with competence and in good faith,” said Lauren Woods, the agency’s director of news.

There was ample reason for DOC officials to be concerned about the inmate health care system when they wrote the emails, but the changes they implemented weren’t enough to prevent further problems from occurring. In at least two cases, inmates who died after being denied timely medical care sued the state.

One was William Bennett. In June of 2016, two months after the emails were exchanged by DOC officials, CMHC denied a request Bennett to see an ear, nose and throat specialist after he began coughing frequently at night and having trouble swallowing. Bennett went without treatment for months before he was sent to the emergency room at Day Kimball Hospital in January 2017 because he was having trouble breathing. Doctors there diagnosed a large, malignant tumor in his throat. He died the following December.

Bennett’s family sued the state in November 2018. That case is still pending.

Patrick Camera, who died in March 2019, also sued the state. In the lawsuit Camera filed in September 2018, attorneys Ken Krayeske and DeVaughn Ward alleged Camera suffered from frequent nosebleeds but was never properly tested or treated. Doctors discovered a tumor the size of a baseball when Camera was eventually diagnosed with stage 4 cancer of the face and nasal passage.

Camera had been denied a CAT scan in October 2017, 15 months after the emails were sent.

The documents released by the federal court could impact both those cases. Lawyers for Bennett and Camera have alleged that DOC officials were aware of the “subpar medical treatment known to endanger human life” and still extended the state’s agreement with UConn Health.

In the April 2016 emails Maurer circulated what she called a “very preliminary initial document,” an audit plan she revised after Burns provided feedback on how to improve mental health services. The revised document Maurer shared later that day underscored the DOC’s plan to mobilize medical staff to audit CMHC charts and other activities related to providing inmate health care. Recognizing the department’s low staffing levels, the plan stated that officials would identify high-risk patients and focus their limited resources on their care.

The audit said inmates with medical needs scores of 4 or 5, the two highest medical scores patients can be assigned, were identified as the highest risk. Officials planned on using a system to generate a weekly list of all the people in the prison system with high medical scores, then require CMHC to provide a short summary of each case, listing their medications and treatment plans.

With no electronic system in place at the time to track medical health records and requests, the document acknowledges the uphill battle to track the health of the state’s inmates.

“This would take a significant effort to establish the initial list, but updating it would require much less effort,” the document states.

The department would employ a similar method for patients with mental health needs scores of 5, the highest possible score, who are “the sickest persons with mental health conditions … and pose risk for suicide, self-injury and related risks.”  The DOC would require CMHC to provide treatment plans for each person with a mental health score of 5, and then update those plans on a weekly basis.

Officials would also review the care of  “select” patients with mental health scores of 4, “who came to our attention either as a function of institutional behavior, or as a result of a Warden’s or Deputy Warden’s request, or as the result of an inmate letter or a call from an attorney, or family member, or other source.”

Maurer also identified immediate and longer-term interventions to improve care. Many of the immediate proposed changes dealt with the utilization review committee, which at the time approved consultations for patients who required specialized care. The DOC began approving all doctors’ requests for their patients to see specialists once the state took over health care from UConn Health, in July 2018.

The audit also proposed having DOC medical staff attend all URC meetings and “follow up on questionable decisions made by the committee,” and requiring CMHC to provide a weekly list and explanation of all committee denials for specialist care.

Another recommendation was to examine why incarcerated people were experiencing delays in care. It suggested collecting data showing the time lapse between each URC request, approval and appointment dates, broken down by specialty type.

The longer-term interventions emphasized working collaboratively with CMHC to develop policies to expedite treatment for patients who had, or potentially had, terminal diseases. The plan also proposed improving routine health screening for certain incarcerated individuals upon intake, and offering inmates preventative care exams, labs and screenings, and dental care, including cavity fillings and teeth cleanings.

Despite the changes implemented after the 2016 audit plan, it’s clear from the emails that some DOC officials still had concerns about the quality of care in the state’s correctional institutions.

On July 20, 2017, Tim Bombard, an employee in the DOC Health and Addiction Services Unit, wrote to Mauer and Cheryl Cepelak, the department’s deputy commissioner, to tell them his unit was still receiving referrals for cases with “significant deficits in planning or timing of care in addition to inappropriate care … I have not noticed any significant improvement in the frequency or severity of these cases. Furthermore, I continue to encounter resistance from CMHC leadership concerning specific cases.”

Bombard included in his email a response from CMHC on a specific patient’s case. “CMHC’s responsibility is to ensure that the patient was seen by an appropriate qualified specialists and review the results of the consult. The specialists are up to date on the most recent literature in their field,” the statement read, adding that the patient was seen by mental health professionals on June 6, 2017, and that he would be scheduled for a yearly cardiology evaluation within the next month.

“I would respectfully suggest that this response is not keeping with the language of the MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] or the community standard of care,” Bombard wrote.

This story was updated Friday evening with a statement from UConn Health.

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kelan Lyons is a Report For America Corps Member who covers the intersection of mental health and criminal justice for CT Mirror. Before joining CT Mirror, Kelan was a staff writer for City Weekly, an alt weekly in Salt Lake City, Utah, and a courts reporter for The Bryan-College Station Eagle, in Texas. He is originally from Philadelphia.

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
Bill that would eliminate CT’s religious exemption from mandatory vaccines clears House
by Jenna Carlesso

The measure passed by a vote of 90 to 53 after 16 hours of debate.

Connecticut’s COVID restrictions to end on May 19
by Mark Pazniokas

Connecticut will end its COVID-19 restrictions in two steps: May 1 for outdoor activities and May 19 for everything else.

Biden moves to overturn Trump birth control rules
by Julie Rovner | Kaiser Health News

The Biden administration has formally proposed the repeal of Trump-era regulations barring abortion referrals.

New Britain residents weren’t getting vaccinated. So city officials got creative.
by Dave Altimari

The city's efforts are a microcosm of what is happening across the country as officials struggle to vaccinate vulnerable residents.

CT lawmakers call for funding to stop ‘mass killing’ of Black and brown children
by Kelan Lyons

Lawmakers identified a $5 billion proposal by the Biden administration, and marijuana and sports-betting legalization efforts, as potential funding.

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion One step Connecticut can take to address our maternal mortality crisis
by Myechia Minter-Jordan, MD

Uncertainty. Fear. Worry. These are just a few of the thoughts and emotions that run through the minds of almost every expecting parent. And for many expecting Black parents, those feelings can be more acute. That’s because for far too many, having a child is a life and death struggle.

Opinion Connecticut lawmakers on aid in dying: two decades of delay, deferral, obstruction
by Paul Bluestein, MD

Very soon, members of the Connecticut House and Senate will be voting on HB6425, - the Medical Aid in Dying bill. More than 20 years ago, Oregon implemented its Death with Dignity Act. Since then, Washington, Vermont, California, Montana, Colorado, Maine, Washington DC, Hawaii and most recently New Mexico have passed legislation authorizing medical aid in dying for terminally ill adults. But not Connecticut.

Opinion The intersection of race, class and gender in America’s childcare system: The class edition
by Georgia Goldburn

When Michelle Obama declared that she wanted to become “Mom in Chief,” she spoke to a sentiment shared by many women, i.e. the desire to be the primary caregiver of their young children in their early years. Not unexpectedly, Mrs. Obama was derided for making that choice, highlighting how society stands ready to indict women […]

Opinion A progressive income tax to re-align Connecticut’s moral compass
by Ezra Kaprov

Redistribution of wealth and property is a fundamental and missing pillar of the hope for multi-racial democracy in the United States.

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO