Federal Judge Roslyn Silver has finally lost patience with the DOC. She’s taking them to trial over their continued non-compliance with Parson v. Ryan, a class action suit started in 2012.
If the DOC can’t defend their decision to turn over the health care of inmates to a for-profit contractor, they will be in receivership, and that will end substandard health care for inmates.
Judge Silver says it best, “The state’s failures have led to preventable deaths, suicides, and untold suffering by inmates unable to obtain medical treatment. The dead are not advantaged by repeated promises of better behavior in the future, nor are they able to gain from monetary rewards. It is impossible to quantify the harm suffered by prisoners because of inadequate health care.”