Nevada medical chief gives OK to state prisons food
CARSON CITY — Nevada’s correctional institutions are all up-to-date on inspections for cleanliness and safety as well as diet and food preparation, the state’s chief medical officer said Thursday.
“These inspections review prisoner diets to ensure specialized diets are available to patients, for example low-sodium diets/menus are available for prisoners with cardiac disease,” said Dr. Tracey Green, chief medical officer for the state Division of Public and Behavioral Health.
“The chief medical officer has not identified any concerns to include in her reports to the Board of Prison Commissioners.”
Green’s statement came a week after a panel of the Nevada Supreme Court reversed a district court and ordered it to compel the state’s chief medical officer to examine and report on the nutritional adequacy of the diet of prison inmates as required by state law.
The case was brought by Robert Leslie Stockmeier, an inmate at Lovelock Correctional Center in Northern Nevada, who said Green was not fulfilling her duties to review inmate diets and report her findings to the state prisons board.
A Carson City District Court dismissed Stockmeier’s case, but a three-member panel of the Supreme Court reversed that decision, finding that Green’s examination of inmate diets and her resulting report to the board “fell well short of what was required.”
Green said the inspections are up-to-date from fiscal years 2011 to 2014 from the Nevada Bureau of Health Care Quality and Compliance under her direction, including sanitation, healthfulness, cleanliness and safety.
“Going forward, HCQC plans to better document how the review takes place,” she said in response to the court ruling. “In the past, records would only reflect deficient practices rather than demonstrate areas of compliance.”
Green said she will continue to comply with law and any additional direction from the District Court.
Contact Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900. Find him on Twitter: @seanw801.
