Several changes in health care in the state’s prison system have taken place since the death of an inmate last year whose complaints that he couldn’t breathe went ignored by corrections and health care staff before he died, lawmakers were told Thursday.
The head of the company providing health care services inside Vermont’s prison testified before the House Corrections and Institutions Committee about personnel moves made after taking over the contract last month, including putting a new person in charge as medical director.
At the same time, James Baker, interim corrections commissioner, told panel members that he is looking to hire the department’s own medical director to oversee the contractor.
Viola Riggin, CEO of Kansas-based VitalCore Health Strategies, said during the video session that the company has named Dr. Kathleen Maurer, a former Connecticut Department of Corrections official, its medical director in Vermont.
“She is going to oversee all health care,” Riggin told the committee, adding, “Dr. Maurer is an advocate, a patient advocate.”
Maurer replaces Dr. Steven Fisher, who held that role for the state’s previous health care contractor, Centurion Managed Health. VitalCore had been selected by the state over Centurion Managed Care during a bidding process for the prison health-care provider contract.
Fisher, according to Riggin, is staying on, taking a position in the prison systems’ Medication Assisted Treatment program to help address inmate opioid addiction.
“We have had a peer review of Dr. Fisher from an external source,” Riggin said, “and that peer review has assured us that they believed he was competent to practice in our MAT program.”
Baker, the corrections commissioner, told the committee Thursday about the search for the department’s own medical director to help watch over the new contractor.
“It’s more critical than ever,” Baker said, “that we have a medical director on our side that answers to the deputy commissioner and drives the train on how health care is provided.”
However, he said, while there has been money in the budget to fill that position, it has long been vacant due the difficulty in finding the right person for the job for the money offered. Around $180,000 had been in the budget for that post and there’s been talk of increasing that to the $200,000 level.
A doctor with the Vermont Department of Health Access is currently serving in that role for about 15 hours a week.
“We’ve tried very hard since January to recruit for that,” Baker told the lawmakers of the department’s medical director position. “We’re going back to the drawing board on that, looking to up the salary.”
The Vermont Defender General’s Office has called for the corrections department to hire its own medical director following a blistering report that blasted the department and the Centurion medical staff over the care of an inmate who died in custody late last year.
Kenneth Johnson, 60, had repeatedly complained about difficulty breathing while he was at the Northern State Correctional Center in Newport.
However, according to a report into Johnson’s death by the Defender General’s Office, his complaints were ignored and he was even threatened with solitary confinement if he didn’t stop complaining.
Johnson, according to the report and statements from a fellow inmate in the infirmary with him at the time, had told corrections and medical staff he couldn’t breathe and died of an undiagnosed cancerous tumor that had blocked his airway.
Defender General Matthew Valerio has called on the Vermont Human Rights Commission to investigate the role Johnson’s race played in the lack of care he received while incarcerated.
Baker, who took over in January as interim corrections commissioner, has repeatedly said that there needs to be a “culture change” within the department.
“I’m very optimistic that we’re at a different place than we were before,” Baker told lawmakers Thursday.
“We still are going to struggle,” he added, “with breaking down the barriers of understanding how you deliver, I’m not talking about VitalCore now. I’m talking about corrections, how you deliver community-based standard health care inside of correctional institutions.”
Rep. Alice Emmons, D-Springfield and the committee chair, asked Riggin about the health care workers who are now doing the job.
“The staffing has been of concern, that some folks were kept on and other folks have been let go or reassigned,” Emmons said to Riggin. “How is the staff reacting to all of this change as well as to the change in practice, are you hearing anything?”
“Absolutely,” Riggin replied, adding that the employee vetting process is continuing with more staff training also taking place. “They know that everything they do is being looked at very strictly right now.”
Of the 178 health care workers, 99 are former Centurion employees. When the transition began there were 129 full-time employees from Centurion. VitalCare has also filled the nearly 50 vacant positions that Centurion had when their contract expired June 30.
Riggin also talked to the panel about the company’s commitment to transparency.
“If you want to see our financial books we’ll post them” she said.
“We have flaws like any other organization, state or company,” Riggin later added. “We’re human, our patients are human, our doctors are human, and people are going to make mistakes.”
Baker said during his time with Riggin he became aware of her wide knowledge of providing health care within a correctional facility, adding that at the times it was like going to school when the two had conversations and he would just listen and take it all in.
“To get Jim Baker to shut his mouth, it’s a big event,” he told the committee. “And she was able to do that for an hour and half.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: New prison medical provider talks of personnel, care changes .