The Treatment Of Medical Care

Inmates, while incarcerated, receive better medical care than most citizens in the United States. According to a 2008-2009 report done by the Legislature Analyst Office, it costs California over twelve thousand four -hundred and forty-two dollars per inmate for health care each year, which includes medical care, psychiatric services, pharmaceuticals, and dental care (page 2). Prisoner F received a lifesaving surgery that cost over two-hundred fifty thousand dollars. The only prison affiliated contact prisoner F had while in the hospital was the fact that he had a chained ankle bracelet which had him handcuffed to the hospital bed. Just as they receive the best medical care in the United States, they are also known to have many luxuries which hard

Many advocates are fighting for improved medical care. It is improving slowly but surely. For example, many prisons started new counseling and education programs for HIV/ AIDS. Lawsuits and grievances are filed against prisons that are careless. The best strategy for change to occur is by having the media involved. “Lawsuits and Media go hand and hand,” Law stated. For example in Wisconsin, anonymous female prisoners called a Milwaukee newspaper to report medical negligence that led to an inmate’s death (Law, 2009). This phone call gave attention to this problem. Laws were passes to train medical personnel and for improved medical records.

Linder and Frederick J. Meyers. This article starts with a story about an inmate who found out he had cancer while incarcerated. Then, it goes on to incorporate his story throughout the article in interview form to provide inside information on the treatment of prisoners. Most inmates come in with addictions and substance abuse, no access to health care, homelessness, and untreated mental illnesses (Linder and Meyers 895). They blame this on the lack of medical health that’s available to the general population. According to Linder and Meyers, “Inmates and the free-living populations share 6 of the 10 leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, cerebrovascular disease, respiratory disease, influenza/pneumonia, and septicemia”. With the remaining four for inmates being liver disease, AIDS, self-harm and digestion

One of the most controversial issues regarding the mentally ill and the prison system is the medical treatment received. According to the film, “16% of the prison population in the state of Ohio, which reflects a national average, are persons who have been diagnosed with mental illness.” Prisons began as an institution designed to rehabilitate, however, a vast majority of prisons throughout the country do not provide adequate medical care for their mentally ill inmates. However, the prisons that do possess adequate health care are most likely the first instance in which the inmates with mental illness have received any sort of treatment in their entire life. People with chronic mental illness need constant supervision which they cannot get outside of prison. Although inmates does not receive the most extensive treatment, the treatment they do receive is well beyond the treatment they would have received had they stayed out of the criminal justice system.

While much discussion has been had in respect to the legislation of the Affordable Care Act and how it would impact the citizens of the United States, not a lot of thought is given to the medical state of the inmates incarcerated in North America. According to the eighth amendment, cruel and unusual punishment should not be inflicted upon inmates (U.S. Const. amend.VIII). Not issuing the proper medication to a pain stricken cancer patient or prenatal vitamins to an expectant mother can be looked at as cruel and unusual punishment. This paper aims to determine if healthcare in the United States is unconstitutional in its delivery. Healthcare at both federal and state prisons along with detention centers will be examined for this study. I am

would still need a consent from their treating doctor and a record of inmate’s medical history. Inmates who aren’t being treated well in prison would be transferred to hospitals for proper treatment (Reed and Lyne, 2000).

Although elderly inmates are receiving health care while they are institutionalized, they are not always receiving the proper health care that is needed. The overwhelming increase in the elderly prison population has caused challenges to health care administrators. According to Kuhlmann and Ruddel (2005), not only do elderly inmates have common illnesses such as high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, dementia or other diseases that one undergoes as they age, elderly inmates are also affected by transmissible diseases due to overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, or unprotected sex. Health officials also have a problem treating elderly patients who are at the top of the list for being attacked by other inmates. Even if an elderly inmate is healthy when processed into the prison system, the stressors contribute to the declines in physical functioning ensuing in amplified health care. Kuhlmann and Ruddel (2005), states the only way that elderly inmates can receive proper health care is if public health practitioners and jail administrators launch an improved long-term

Should prisoners receive only the very minimum necessary to keep them comfortable? Should expensive diagnostic and treatment options be made available to them? Where exactly should the line be drawn? If a prisoner does receive a lower standard of medical treatment and is later found to be innocent, what sort of responsibility do the state and society bear if he now leaves prison sicker than when he entered? Most people

Healthcare is a big topic no matter how you view it, but when looking at it from the point of a person who is in prison, it takes on a whole new view. Those who are in prison have federal and state laws that say that the prisons must provide them with medical facilities for their healthcare needs. This paper will identify a governmental agency that regulates the healthcare that is provided to prisoners in an institution within the United States, along with the foundation of such an agency and who regulates the licenses, accreditation, certifications, and authorization for employment for those who work within one of these

The Ohio Justice and Policy center documented a claim in 2003 for three prisoner’s Rodney Fussell, Gary Roberts, and James Love. The prisoners stated that they obtained incompetent medical care. Although some may argue, they are prisoners and do not deserve medical care, they still have the legal right to obtain it. These three men suffered from Hepatitis C, and periodontal disease.

There are approximately 1,600,000 million inmates are behind bars in America (Glazer, 2014, para. 11) . Without a doubt, much of state prisons are overcrowded, which can lead to, very dangerous situations and environments. Due to the overwhelming number of inmates incarcerated it is difficult to deal with medical and mental health problems in prison. If most inmates complain about not feeling well or have symptoms, medical condition or disease that is not immediately, they would get some form of medication and get turned life back without seeing a doctor for a proper medical exam. A clear majority of the health care professional that work in the prison systems are very under qualified to work in such dangerous and trauma environments like prisons

(Wilper, 2009) In this article it is reported that there is high rate of chronic medical conditions. Some of the more common issues in prisons are "coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, asthma, chronic lung diseases, HIV infections, hepatitis B and C, other sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis, chronic renal failure, physical disabilities, and many types of cancer.” (Bondurant, 2013) Many of these types of medical issues call for continuous treatment which in the end can pose as a

Dominique Robert’s (2008) theoretical framework in the article “Prison and/as Public Health. Prison and Inmates as Vectors of Health in the New Public Health Era. The Case of Canadian Penitentiaries” focuses on structural elements that explain the use of correctional health care in the prison setting today and how this plays a role in the broader public health strategies in the outside community. He does this by explaining factors such as “the mobilisation of prison as a tool for the new public health” and "the production of inmates into healthcare ‘consumers’, along with the role of actuarial justice.”

Under those circumstances, prisoner welfare often remains neglected and overlooked. Society needs to become concerned with not only the growing numbers of HIV inmates, but the potential spread within their communities. Prisoners live in a high risk environment that makes them susceptible to come in contact with the HIV disease. This exposure can come through the use of drugs, tattooing, sexual behaviors, and inadequate health care. Although prisons do provide HIV testing when inmates enter the facility it is against human rights to expose the results of this testing due to patient confidentiality. As a result, many HIV inmates go undetected until something bad happens and treatment is needed. Plus, inmates live in a constant state of violence

While, the issue of the incarcerated population having the privilege of this scarce medical resources is extensively and generally approved or compelling recognition within the correctional health profession and there is a case-law supporting the matter of concern, that the statues of a person as an inmate must not preclude such person as a patient from receiving adequate care in respect to serious health needs, regardless of the cost of such treatment. They also have all the social and moral values since the law does not exempt them from citizenship (Puisis, 2006, p.23).