The final moments of Raymond Herrera’s life were written in a coroner’s report released by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff on July 8.
Details outlined in the report said that Herrera, a 52-year-old father from Lompoc who was serving a 10-day jail sentence for nonviolent probation violations, began convulsing while lying in the top bunk inside his jail cell on June 14. Herrera’s bunkmate, Tony Leal, helped him to the bathroom where Herrera passed out, hitting his mouth against the metal railing and began having another seizure.
Leal called a “man down,” the report states. Deputies rushed to render aid to Herrera, who was eventually transported to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. Herrera was pronounced dead at 1:54 a.m. on June 15. The coroner attributed Herrera’s death to internal bleeding caused by a ruptured spleen stemming from cirrhosis of the liver, the report stated.
Suzanne Riordan of Families ACT! in Santa Barbara, an organization that advocates for effective medical services for inmates, thinks Herrera’s death could have been prevented had he been in a hospital and not in jail.
Riordan said Corizon Health Inc., a Tennessee-based company that’s contracted with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office to provide medical services in the probation department and to inmates at the jail, is to blame because it provides substandard care.
With a county contract renewal on the line, Riordan said the company’s record is dubious, considering the multiple lawsuits filed against Corizon for improper medical care provided to inmates in several states.
A brief search on Lexis-Nexis yields a slew of lawsuits, with some accusing the company of delaying medical care to inmates.
One of them is a recent lawsuit from Lane County, Ore. On June 23, county commissioners agreed to pay a $500,000 settlement to the family of Kelly Conrad Green II, who died several months after receiving a spinal injury in jail that left him a quadriplegic, according the Associated Press. Corizon was listed among the defendants.
According to the lawsuit, Green rammed his head into the wall and wasn’t hospitalized for at least six hours.
“What’s happening is that in order to make a profit, they’re skimping on the treatment they are giving to people,” Riordan said. “It’s very cruel and unusual punishment.”
But the company dismisses this criticism.
“One of the most common misperceptions about our company—and indeed our industry—is that we somehow benefit from providing lower quality care,” an emailed statement from Corizon said. “To the contrary, what makes good medical and business sense is excellent preventive care—intervening early to treat conditions before they become serious.”
Corizon’s existing local contract expired on June 30. At the June 23 Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisor’s meeting, Chief Deputy Laz Salinas of the Sheriff’s Office asked to extend Corizon’s contract for another two years, which would cost taxpayers $9.8 million. The company holds contracts in at least 27 other states, according to Corizon’s website.
Instead, supervisors only agreed to extend Corizon’s contract for four more months, until Oct. 31.
Supervisors Janet Wolf (2nd District) and Doreen Farr (3rd Distrist) expressed frustration over the lack of details in Salinas’ request. The Board of Supervisors gave Salinas until Aug. 25 to come back with more information.
“I don’t know how we’re supposed to approve a contract we haven’t even seen,” Farr said.
But Farr’s concern went far beyond contract formalities. She questioned whether inmates were getting their prescribed medications in a timely manner.
“If there is one issue about the health care in the jail that I seem to hear about the most, it’s about the unevenness of inmates and the medications that are prescribed to them, particularly psychotropic drugs, and the lack of continuity between whatever their medication was before they went in, what it is in the jail, and when they get back out again trying to get them re-stabilized,” Farr said.
Riordan is one of the people making that complaint.
“People are not getting their meds on time, or they’re not getting their meds at all,” Riordan said.
Herrera’s death was ruled natural, but the coroner’s report mentions that he was taking daily medication, possibly for hypertension. It’s unclear if Herrera was given daily medication for any medical conditions while he was in jail.
Past inmates accuse Corizon of ignoring requests for medication.
Charli Parkinson, a 25-year-old Santa Barbara resident and a former inmate who served a jail sentence in the Main Jail for possession of a controlled substance, said she was once booked into jail with an abscess on the inside of her arm. During an exam at the jail, Parkinson said she was in possession of prescribed antibiotics. Parkinson said the nurse wouldn’t let her take them, even after she gave the nurse her doctor’s cell phone number to verify the prescription.
“Whatever it took, I wanted them to be able to verify that I needed to keep taking my medication, but apparently they don’t have anything in their protocol that does that,” Parkinson said.
It’s difficult to verify inmates’ accounts of the medical services they receive while in Santa Barbara County Jail, as health laws prevent Sheriff’s Office officials from commenting on them, according to Kelly Hoover, the Sheriff’s Office public information officer. Although Hoover did verify that Parkinson was booked into the Main Jail sometime in the past.
While serving time on a different jail sentence, Parkinson said she had to put in a medical “kite,” or a request for medical service, because of a dental infection. Written on little slips of paper, the requests are collected frequently when a custody deputy makes his or her rounds. Parkinson said her request to see a doctor wasn’t fulfilled, but she was eventually able to see a nurse, weeks later.
“It got to the point where I couldn’t get out of bed,” Parkinson said. “I couldn’t eat or sleep.”
Parkinson also thinks Corizon is understaffed at the Main Jail. According to Hoover, the company is contracted for 23.53 full time equivalent positions—which include both part-time and full-time employees and at least one doctor—to provide 24-hour medical service to a jail population of a little fewer than 1,000 inmates.
In the statement emailed to the Sun, Corizon admitted that it’s dealing with challenges in providing its services in a “correctional environment,” but overall the company said its patient outcomes are better than those in the general population.
“The facilities in which we operate are structurally built for security—not the provision of care—and our providers can face a range of obstacles, including unanticipated facility lockdowns and violence against health care workers,” Corizon Health said in the statement. “Our patients suffer from illnesses and chronic conditions, including mental illness, at a much higher rate than the general population. Often times they have not had consistent access to treatment or medical care.”
Riordan agrees with Corizon on at least one thing—that jails don’t make good hospitals.
“The jails weren’t meant to provide community care,” Riordan said, elaborating on her dislike for the health care provider. “Companies like Corizon don’t have a heart.”
Contact Staff Writer David Minsky at dminsky@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 23-30, 2015.