With aging and sicker inmates, health care costs are rising for Onondaga County’s prisons.
“We have some pretty sick people,” said Denise Dukat, the director of nursing for correctional health in Onondaga County.
To treat them, she and other county officials say, health care costs have gone from $5.2 million in 2008 to $5.9 million in 2010. That’s an increase of 12 percent.
The chief reasons for the rising costs: A larger and an aging population. The spread of HIV and AIDS inside prisons and in the larger population. The growing number of women — and pregnancies — in jails. And the higher prices for health care and medication in general.
Statistics from the county give these details of the inmates and their health:
- The number of inmates has grown from about 1,410 in 2000 to 2,160 in 2009. That’s an increase of about 35 percent.
- The average age has gone up from 28 in 2000 to 31 in 2008. These ages reflect the relatively younger population convicted of non-violent offenses. The Jamesville prison only holds people with sentences up to five years and most inmates are there for only two years, said John Ball, an administrative assistant at the Onondaga County Department of Correction.
- In 2009 about 80 percent of the inmates were on medication.
- The number of women in the county’s prison has gone from 192 in 2000 to 215 women in 2009. This is an increase of 11 percent.
- In 2000 there were 24 pregnancies. This means about 12.5 percent of the women in the correction facilities were pregnant. The numbers have not been released yet for 2009.
To care for those inmates, the correctional medical staff is made up of 20 full-time nurses, six doctors, three psychiatrists, nurse practioners and physician assistants that work part time, said Dukat, the director of nursing. The budget for the staff is about $1.6 million for 2010.
More than $800,000 of the budget is spent on medications, Dukat said. The medications for psychiatric treatment and HIV are expensive and a bulk of the medication costs, Duakt said.
The Onondaga County Health Department provides health care for over 2,100 inmates a year at the jail located downtown and in the prison in Jamesville. The health care includes medications, check-ups, dental work, hospital care, psychiatrists and obstetrical-gynecological visits. Every inmate has a checkup when he or she enters the jail downtown, said Dukat.
Inmates of the downtown jail are usually there only a short time while they await trial. Those convicted for non-violent offenses with sentences no longer than five years are sent to the Jamesville prison.
The county has been paying for the inmates’ health care since 1976. That’s when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that denying inmates health care was a violation of the eighth amendment forbidding cruel and unusual punishment, Dukat said.
When it comes to inmates’ health and rising costs, Onondaga county reflects what’s happening across the country, says Ed Harrison, the president of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. The Commission is a nonprofit organization based in Chicago. It studies the health care for inmates and advocates for inmates on improving health care.
The aging prison population increases the need and the cost for health care, he said, because older people tend to be sicker than younger inmates. And some of today’s inmates are growing older in prison because of comparatively harsher prison sentences from 10 to 15 years ago, he said. This means people are serving longer sentences and aren’t getting out as early as they used to, said Harrison.
The cost of the nation’s correctional health care programs is also increasing because of the increase in need for and cost of medications, he said. “The costs of drugs has gone up and that’s a huge factor in the driving cost,” Harrison said.
Inmates’ illnesses have also gotten worse, say experts on prison health care. The biggest problems for the inmates in Onondaga County’s jail and prison are heart disease, psychiatric illnesses, HIV and Hepatitis B and C, said Dukat, the director of nursing for Onondaga County’s prisons.
“For some people, it’s the only source of health care,” said Dukat. “They only get it in jail. They don’t get it on the outside.”
(Katrina Koerting is a junior with dual majors in newspaper and political science.)
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