66 California Inmate Deaths Preventable According to Prison Receiver Robert Sillen

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Analysis in letter sent to Governor and legislators may presage evidence before The Judge Federal Panel next Monday

[Editor's note: Robert Sillen, appointed as the receiver of the California Prison medical care system by Federal Court Judge Thelton Henderson has send the following letter to the Governor, legislators, and others about deaths in the prisons in 2006. We expect more reports and documents to be forthcoming in advance of the September 24, 2007 court hearing before a three judge panel in the Federal Courts that is contemplating early release and other remedies for a system already determined to not meet constitutional standards.]

Letter from the Receiver
19 September 2007

When U.S. District Court Judge Thelton E. Henderson found that the state’s prison medical care violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, forbidding cruel and unusual punishment, he knew that meant virtually every aspect of the system was broken. That was in 2002. For years after, court experts continued to provide compelling evidence of the degraded conditions, patient suffering and death and state intransigence that blocked necessary reform.

Finally, Henderson’s “drastic but necessary remedy” -- the Receivership -- got underway just over a year ago. Thus began the dual task of planning and implementing long-term improvements to California’s prison medical system while also taking over the reigns for daily operations and crisis management in 32 adult prisons.

The Receivership inherited the state’s dysfunctional system and has been working to prioritize and realize changes, many of which are starting to be felt system-wide and in individual institutions in the field. These include an overhaul of the pharmacy system, bringing medical staff salaries up to market levels, providing prisons with needed equipment and supplies to deliver health care, revamping medical contracting and personnel practices, supporting physician and nurse leaders in the field, developing a new method for hiring health care executives and managers, constructing an adequate emergency room at San Quentin, providing prisons with transport vehicles, coordinating remedial efforts with those in federal mental health, dental and disabled inmates cases, and launching a project to build up to 5,000 medical and 5,000 mental health beds statewide. (See upcoming Quarterly Report to the court to be filed 9/24/07 and previous reports to the court posted on our web site www.cprinc.org.)