ACLU: Inmates' lives can’t wait for slow fixes to Arizona prison health care

The state Department of Corrections is pushing back against the request for a federal judge to remove its control of the prison healthcare system.

Officials argue that they’re doing what they can to bring systemic change. ACLU attorney Lauren Beall said that especially when it comes to life-threatening conditions, meaningful change can’t wait that long.

“I’ve met people who have open wounds from a surgery, who, their wound hasn’t closed in months and months, and they simply can’t get enough sterile bandages to dress them every day,” she said. “So, nurses are bringing supplies from the drug store because they see someone who’s suffering so badly.”

According to Beall, the monitoring done by both ACLU staff and state-appointed experts, brought in as a neutral party, has demonstrated that many issues from the original 2012 complaint are ongoing.

“I have seen people who have tumors wrapped around their throat so they're at risk of choking every night when they're going to bed,” said Beall. “I've seen people with epilepsy who tell me that they haven't been able to get their medications in time, so they're seizing over and over again, which causes brain damage.”

At the crux of the issue are the limited options available to incarcerated people, she said, when it comes to any and every decision about their own health.

“I have spoken to women who have been brought to the hospital over and over again for a planned induction, for a planned C-section, who did not want to go that route,” Beall said. “And they had to really advocate for themselves in order to not be forcibly induced to give birth.”

The hope, Beall explained, is for a receiver to open up a path for strategies like using less privatized prison services in the state.

“When you have a private prison health care provider, you have a profit motive,” she said. “So that means that rather than a state health care provider, you have an incentive for constant cost cutting, which is not conducive to providing good health care or constitutionally adequate health care for people who are already vulnerable, who already have a hard time advocating themselves and have no other option.”

Which is why, said Beall, they’ve chosen now to push for a court-appointed expert of the Department’s choosing to step in.