ACLU urges reforms in prison health care

CARSON CITY -- The American Civil Liberties Union, following up on earlier claims of "gross medical abuse" at Nevada's maximum-security Ely State Prison, urged state Prison Board members on Monday to avoid a drawn-out legal battle by agreeing to reforms.

The ACLU, in a letter to Gov. Jim Gibbons, Attorney General Catherine Cortez-Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller, asked for a response to a proposed consent decree by Jan. 22 "in order to avoid protracted litigation."

Gibbons spokeswoman Melissa Subbotin said it would take "some time" to review the ACLU request, adding that the proposed decree would apply to "a complex series of health standards" now in place for Nevada prisons.

The three Prison Board members and state Corrections Director Howard Skolnik, who also got the ACLU letter, were scheduled to meet in the capital today.

Skolnik said he didn't want to comment on the ACLU request until he could go over the consent decree proposal with legal counsel. The prisons chief also said the request wasn't on today's Prison Board agenda.

Skolnik has said he disagreed with findings in an earlier ACLU report on prison medical care, written by Dr. William Noel, and believes that medical care provided inmates at the Ely prison meets with constitutional requirements.

Noel said in his report that at least one convict at the prison, which houses Nevada's death row inmates, "has already died an unnecessary, slow and agonizing death" and more such deaths and unnecessary suffering are probable without prompt changes at the prison.

The ACLU's report was based on a review of medical records of 35 prisoners.

In one of the more "shocking" cases, Noel said death row inmate Patrick Cavanaugh, was denied insulin for three years, which caused him to develop gangrene that went untreated. The doctor said medical staffers at the prison "left him to rot to death."

The ACLU has questioned why Cavanaugh was cremated immediately after death without an autopsy or prior contact with next of kin.

Skolnik has said the cremations were in line with procedures that have been in place for years. He also said that a family member can get an inmate's body, but a written request has to be submitted in advance in cases of convicts with terminal illnesses.