Arizona Fines Wexford $10,000 for Neglect, Hepatitis C Exposure

The Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) disciplined its former prison healthcare provider like a parent who banishes a teenager to the cozy confines of his bedroom.

Wexford Health Sources, which took over prisoner medical care in Arizona in July 2012 after winning a three-year, $349 million contract, was fined a paltry $10,000 after – among other disturbing incidents – a prisoner at the Florence complex hanged himself on August 23, 2012, He had not received his psychotropic medication for an entire month.

According to the ADC, Wexford's failure to provide the medication to the prisoner was a “significant non-compliance issue.” The state accused Wexford of showing a “lack of urgency” to correct medication problems, and ADC staff had “to identify inmates in need of medication renewals.”

Wexford was also slow to report a nurse who, on August 28, 2012, exposed prisoners in Buckeye to hepatitis C through contaminated insulin injections. Nwadiuto Jane Nwaohia administered a routine dose of insulin to a diabetic prisoner with hepatitis C, according to ADC Director Charles Ryan. She then inserted the same needle into another vial to draw more insulin for the same prisoner. That vial was placed in a medication refrigerator and mixed up with other vials of insulin used that day for 103 diabetic prisoners. [See: PLN, July 2013, p.1].

Nwaohia was suspended, but Wexford didn’t notify health officials of the hepatitis C exposure from the contaminated insulin until eight days later. Alleging that Wexford failed to follow nursing protocols, mismanaged documents, and did not adequately notify authorities of the contamination, the state deployed additional staff to correct the problem.

Also in August, a Wexford nurse at the women’s Perryville prison complex in suburban Phoenix administered medication to a prisoner by having her “lick the powdered medication from her own hand,” rather than putting the medicine in a small cup of water. In addition, the state learned, a number of prisoners at Perryville “may not have been receiving their medications as prescribed due to expired prescription[s] and inappropriate renewals or refills.”

Following the incidents, the state and Wexford began pointing the finger at each other. ADC said it wanted Wexford to fix staffing problems, properly distribute and document medication for prisoners, show some urgency, and communicate better when problems arise. In a written statement, Ryan said Wexford was being afforded a chance to “improve communications and ensure the healthcare needs of the inmates incarcerated by the State of Arizona are being met.”

Wexford, meanwhile, shifted blame back to the state. In a letter to Ryan, the company said that ADC “must recognize that the system that was in place” before Wexford’s contract took effect in July was “extremely weak.” The company also said the people who were hired by ADC to monitor Wexford are the same people who took the prisoner healthcare system into decline.

Wexford and the ADC abruptly decided to cancel the company’s contract in January 2013, and rival prison medical services firm Corizon took over the ADC contract two months later.

“There's no question that over the past year Wexford has been providing abysmal care to Arizona prisoners with serious medical and mental health needs,” said ACLU of Arizona Legal Director Dan Pochoda. “Through our existing litigation against ADOC, we’ve documented deteriorating medical conditions that have caused prolonged suffering for thousands of inmates and likely resulted in unnecessary deaths.”

Corizon, however, doesn’t have a much better track record with respect to providing medical care to prisoners – including a January 14, 2014 incident in which a Corizon nurse contaminated vials of insulin and exposed prisoners to HIV or hepatitis C. [See: PLN, March 2014, p.1].

Sources: The Arizona Republic, www.azcentral.com, www.mohavedailynews.com