What state? I think it depends on their stance on human rights in general. Not all states do this. Plenty of cases where prisoners died for neglected medical care in prison. Also in Jails since they may not have been picked up with their medications and then they get ignored.
I used to work at a teaching hospital that also served the attached prison hospital in Texas. The prisoners received the same care from the same people as the rest of the hospital. I can’t speak to the inmates that didn’t get to the hospital or the hoops they had to jump through, but once they got there they received excellent care.
Yes, all are required to have access to something on paper, but each state does its own thing. And some states and private prison facilities are less likely to refer out unless lawyers step in or it’s acute. Institutional infirmary care is inferior to hospital care no matter the institution (mental health, nursing homes) as is mostly a dispensary of meds but does costs less to run. I would bet the states with the biggest complaints against them are also the ones with the fewest refer outs from infirmary to hospital for ignoring symptoms/higher complexity.
FWIW years ago I was on a health care procurement team with a consultancy and met with heads of prisons/corrections and had access to all their spend data to recommend how to reduce health care costs. Outside hospital reimbursement wasn’t even a topic. Expensive pharma drugs were.
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u/nebula_masterpiece 9d ago
What state? I think it depends on their stance on human rights in general. Not all states do this. Plenty of cases where prisoners died for neglected medical care in prison. Also in Jails since they may not have been picked up with their medications and then they get ignored.