What's Wrong With this Picture-The Condition of US Care Facilities
In many industries, a big-business model is effective at keeping costs low and convenience levels high for consumers. Few can deny the simplicity stores like Target have brought to shopping by allowing you to find everything you need in one location, with only one trip.
But what happens when this same principal is applied to businesses not based in retail? That may not be a question you've ever considered, but the practice of allowing large corporations run care facilities like prisons, nursing homes, and mental health facilities on a contract basis is becoming common-and, in many cases, disastrous.
In Prison
Consider the case of the Texas Youth Commission's Coke County facility, operated by the Geo Group on a contract basis. Last month, the prison was reportedly declared unlivable, and the inmates were moved to another facility.
According to sources, the Coke County facility, deemed "deplorable," had the following infractions:
- Inadequate laundry facilities and filthy clothing for inmates
- Limited and erratic access to showers and phones
- Infestations of insects and spiders, which were often found in inmates' food
- Allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior by guards
One 19-year-old inmate allegedly killed himself in his cell last year.
Nursing Homes
Many factors have led nursing homes to near-bankrupt levels of financial distress. For many, the lawsuits brought and won by patients forced nursing homes to pay so much money that they had no choice but to be bought out to prevent complete bankruptcy.
In most cases, the buying company was a large corporation which saved the facility financially by cutting costs-often to the point of keeping inadequate numbers of doctors and nurses on staff to care for patients, according to reports. And, though the homes are doing well on paper (i.e. making profits), patients often grow sicker and even die from lack of proper care.
In one instance, documented by the Internet Free Press, a woman tried to sue the nursing home that allowed her mother to die from an easily-preventable condition-an infected bedsore. But, the article reports, because of the complex structure of the business that owns the nursing home, the woman's lawyer had difficulty in determining who was responsible for the negligence.
Reportedly in its third year now, the woman's case is still pending.
Mental Health Facilities
Though the nation's closing of its insane asylums several decades ago was meant to be helpful to the mentally ill by including them in mainstream society, it didn't quite work the way it was planned. According to the an article in the Concord Monitor, mentally ill Americans are still institutionalized-but today they're in prisons, where they're not getting the treatments available in hospitals.
In some reported cases, mentally ill individuals are considered "dangerous" enough to be put into jail, but not "dangerous" enough to be committed to a hospital. According to the Monitor, one out of six inmates in America suffers from mental illness, which means that there are more inmates with mental illnesses in prisons than in mental health facilities.
What explains this phenomenon?
Maybe the fact that many mental health facilities, like nursing homes, are simply underfunded. There just aren't enough beds available for the patients who need them.
Another explanation could be that few law enforcement officials are trained to recognize and deal with mentally ill suspects and criminals. Though Washington has reportedly begun offering training to some of its police officers, the problem still plagues the rest of the nation.
Not Isolated Events
The examples given in this article are by no means unusual. Prisons run by contractors and nursing homes operated by complex corporations have become the norm in the United States. Texas has reportedly launched an investigation into all its contract facilities in the wake of the Coke County disaster.
Sources indicate that many lawyers refuse to argue cases involving negligence in nursing homes run by large companies because they're too labor- and time-intensive.
And the mentally ill continue to be stigmatized by television, film, and prejudice.
While the outlook is somewhat bleak for these areas of American life, hope remains. Should the woman suing the nursing home win her case, for example, an important precedent would be set and large corporations would have to begin worrying about patients' wellbeing instead of just their bottom lines.
As an individual, if you suspect you've been victimized by a situation similar to one of these, you might want to consider contacting an attorney to see if your case could be the one to set an important example and initiate some change.
