Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Connecticut's Corrections' Dept. To Hire Temp Staff To Test Inmates For Hepatitis C
The Department of Correction could temporarily hire about 30 staff members to start testing its inmates for Hepatitis C sometime over the next month, a spokesperson said Thursday afternoon. In addition to temporarily hiring one, 鈥渋deally two鈥 people at each of Connecticut鈥檚 15 jails and prisons to screen the state鈥檚 roughly 13,000 inmates for Hepatitis C, the department will need to order kits and establish blood-drawing locations in each of its facilities, said Karen Martucci, a DOC spokeswoman. (Lyons, 8/15)
The remaining patients at the state鈥檚 maximum security psychiatric hospital faced no criminal charges and were civilly committed, or were there to be restored to competency so their criminal cases could be resolved. But all, regardless of the reason they were admitted, are prohibited from being in their room when their belongings are searched by staff and police 鈥 a restriction they might not have faced had they received psychiatric care at any other behavioral health facility in the state. (Lyons, 8/16)
The outgoing director of Arizona's prison system was "surprisingly uninformed" about broken cell door locks at Lewis Prison, the danger the problem posed and how his administration's efforts to fix the issue may have made matters worse, a new report found. Written by two former state Supreme Court justices, the report paints a grim portrait of dysfunction within the Arizona Department of Corrections in addressing what would seem like an elementary problem for a prison: keeping inmates behind bars. (Oxford, 8/15)
Travis County gave initial approval this week to continue an effort that diverts mentally ill criminal defendants away from jail and into treatment, despite commissioners鈥 concerns about a lack of hard data to back up the program鈥檚 success. The collaboration between the county鈥檚 pretrial services and Travis County Integral Care was started in 2016. In three years, the pilot program has gotten 177 inmates with serious mental health issues out of the Travis County Jail on bond and connected them with treatment services, said Stacy Brown, pretrial services division director. (Huber, 8/15)
