have there been any cases where an inmate develops some condition that requires surgery? If this is the case, is there a place in a prison where a surgery can be performed or does the prisoner have to be taken under guard to a hospital?
Considering the millions of inmates in prisons, I am surprised that you have to ask whether an inmate has ever required surgery. Yes, it’s a regular occurence in prison. Some prisons have an infirmiry where minor surgery can be performed. In other cases, the inmate is taken under guard to a hospital, where the surgery is performed.
Paging Dr. Qadgop the Mercotan! Paging Dr. Mercotan!
I perform minor surgeries in prison, those requiring only a bit of local anesthetic, like skin lesion or toenail removals. For removing appendici or limbs or bypassing hearts, they go to a designated hospital under guard with various other security measures in place.
In the past, some prisons did have their own surgical suites where more complicated procedures could be done. But as medicine has gotten more technological, that’s not feasible in most locations anymore.
The place I work had its origin as a hospital for the criminally insane. They used to do lobotomies there, or so I’m told.
My brother suffered kidney failure while a guest of the state of Washington. The state paid for a transplant, his medications, and for all the dyalisis he has required since. The transplant was done at a regular hospital.
What I have found odd about this, when I have told others about my brother, their concern was more towards the cost to the taxpayers, not my brother’s health. True, it has been his years of drugging and drinking that caused his problem. What blows me away, if I ask these people if they had a relative in the same situation, would they not want the state to provide at least a minimal attempt to save the person’s life. Many have said no because they feel that it is going to cost them more in taxes.
Well, dialysis and transplants are expensive propositions. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to transplant a person with renal failure, and there is an organ shortage. When a convicted felon gets an organ, it means that someone else is doing without it.
As the laws stand now, prisoner status and past criminal history cannot be taken into account when placing someone on the transplant list, nor can it be taken into account when assigning them their priority number on the list. Many people disagree with this.
All prisons in New York have at least one nurse on duty twenty four hours a day. We also have doctors, dentists, psychiatrists, opthamologists, etc coming into the prisons on a regular schedule. If there is a medical emergency at any time, medical care is available. If it’s more serious than we can immediately treat, we send the inmate out, via ambulance if necessary, to a local hospital.
Prisoners are always getting surgery. I work in a prison with approximatley 1500 inmates. In a typical week we’ll be sending dozens to outside hospitals, with many getting surgery. We have arrangements with some hospitals that have special wards with security built in. But in other cases, we use regular hospital units.
Essentially, prisoners get the exact same medical care anyone else gets, with the exception that they have armed guards watching them while they get it. The only medical procedure New York state does not allow is sex-change surgery.
Inmates do not pay for any medical care. The state pays for the vast majority. The exception is treatments that are still considered experimental; like many insurance companies, the state will not pay for them. But inmates do receive experimental treatments, which are paid for either by the medical companies or by other funds.
I would take issue with this statement, having worked over 18 years in the private sector (with lots of very poor and indigent patients) and 15 months in a max security 1600 bed prison.
The prisoners get better medical care than a significant portion of the US population.
As an aside: Our inmates are expected to pay $7.50 per health visit, unless it’s a routine physical, a follow-up, a work-related injury, or an emergency (as determined by RN or MD). If their back hurts after playing basketball, their account will be billed that amount to see someone. If they don’t have it, a payment plan is worked out.
The $7.50 co-pay really barely covers the expense of running the co-pay system, but it does cut down on frivolous use.
You may want to point out to them that they are paying for the kidney dialysis of anyone on their current health plan.
Definitely not a feature of NY’s inmate health care system. In over two decades of working, I’ve only seen one inmate ever charged for any type of medical care. He claimed he had swallowed a toothbrush and was sent via ambulance to a hospital. When he arrived at the ER, an x-ray quickly revealed there was no toothbrush inside him. The inmate said “I felt like taking a ride.” At his subsequent disciplinary hearing, he was handed the $375 ambulance bill.
I remember a while ago there was a big controversy about a death row inmate receiving a transplant. I thought it was a heart but I guess it was a kidney transplant because this is the only story I could find online:
Of course, inmates know it is often easier to ESCAPE from an outside hospital. I recall seeing a murderer, who escaped from a hospital, after he somehow got feces into his bloodstream, causing all kinds of infections. He went to a local hospital, promptly escaped, came to Santa Monica & committed another crime.