Care at women’s prison poor too, ACLU charges

CARSON CITY -- The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that inmates at the state women's prison in North Las Vegas receive just as deplorable medical care as the male prisoners at the Ely State Prison.

"We have conducted a thorough investigation of that (Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Center) institution as well," said Gary Peck, state ACLU director. "That facility is rife with deep-seated medical care problems."

Lawyers with the ACLU's National Prison Project on Thursday requested a meeting with Gov. Jim Gibbons and state Corrections Director Howard Skolnik to discuss the civil rights organization's just-released investigation into medical care received by the 1,097 inmates at the maximum security state prison in Ely.

They demanded the state commit necessary resources to improve prison medical care.

Skolnik challenged the ACLU's allegations.

"We don't have deplorable conditions at these prisons," said Skolnik, who has invited the ACLU to come back to Ely, meet with him and inmates, and recommend changes.

"If the concerns they have raised are legitimate, we will address them."

Lee Rowland, an ACLU lawyer in Las Vegas, said the investigation at the women's prison has found that inmates rarely receive preventative dental care and often are given improper prescriptions for psychotic conditions.

"These are not isolated incidents but the refrain we have heard from dozens of women," Rowland said.

The ACLU did not offer any case studies of problems encountered by individual female inmates.

Skolnik questioned why the ACLU has not yet sued the prisons system if Peck is so sure that conditions at the prisons in North Las Vegas and Ely are deplorable.

If state government rejects the ACLU findings and "insists everything is fine," then, Peck said, a federal lawsuit could be filed.

"We certainly can litigate when we believe that is our only option," Peck said.

Gibbons spokeswoman Melissa Subbotin said the governor is not scheduling such a meeting with the ACLU "at this time." She said he is confident that Skolnik can handle the ACLU's concerns.

The governor said Thursday that he was concerned about the allegations of improper medical care in prisons.

Because the prisons population has grown so dramatically and will grow even more in coming years, Gibbons said he exempted its budget from the planned 8 percent budget cuts he is considering for some state agencies in January.

Nonetheless, Skolnik doubts residents would back spending more on inmate medical care.

"I don't think spending to provide additional medical care to inmates on Death Row in Ely would be the first choice of Nevada taxpayers," he said.

Gibbons said Nevada "will find the money someplace" if the ACLU prevails in a lawsuit and a federal judge orders more spending on prison medical care.

The Ely prison has been without a full-time physician for 18 months. The inmates receive care from a physician's assistant and a half-time physician.

A doctor hired by the ACLU interviewed inmates and examined medical records of 35 Ely prisoners.

Dr. William Noel, a licensed but nonpracticing osteopath, called the treatment inmates receive "the most shocking and callous disregard for human life and human suffering that I have ever encountered in the medical profession."

Peck said the ACLU has been conducting a similar investigation at the Women's Correctional Center. In reviewing medical records, the group found female inmates also do not receive adequate medical care.

But Skolnik said Peck is "flat wrong" about medical care at the 621-inmate women's prison.

An independent review of prison medical care found it was exceeding community standards, he said.

He said the number of medical grievances filed by inmates at Ely are not any greater than the number of grievances filed by inmates in urban prisons.

"I have complete faith in the medical staff of this department and their professionalism," Skolnik said. "The department provides a constitutional level of care."

Nevada offers full-time physicians at the Ely prison a salary of $164,000 a year, which Skolnik noted is more than is paid the governor. Still the position cannot be filled.

He said it is not the pay, but the absence of other doctors and medical communities in rural Nevada towns that makes filling prison medical positions hard. Ely is about 250 miles north of Las Vegas.

Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert, R-Reno, said legislators should stay out of the situation until Skolnik reviews the allegations and decides whether medical care changes are needed. Then legislators can decide whether they need to intervene.

Because the ACLU has found the same problems with medical care at the Women's Correctional Center, Peck said, Skolnik cannot attribute the problem at Ely solely to the unwillingness of physicians to move to remote rural communities.

"The state has an obligation to get doctors to these facilities. If this ends up in federal court, no judge is going to buy the explanation that they don't want to go to Ely because of its isolation," he said.

What Peck found most shocking about Noel's findings were what he called half-witted notations placed in inmates' medical records by Max Carter, the physician's assistant.

Peck said Carter told one inmate, Charles Randolph, that the medication he wanted was potentially lethal but that he should give it to him because it would increase his chances of dying sooner.

Skolnik said he is reviewing the charges against Carter.

"If they are accurate, then obviously we will do something."

Review-Journal Capital Bureau writer Sean Whaley contributed to this report. Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or (775) 687-3901.