Doctors with histories of serious medical errors or past records of misconduct are hired to work in prisons across the country, and they often continue treating patients even after prison officials are made aware of problems, Type Investigations and The Appeal report. Through interviews with prisoners, lawyers and advocates, and a review of hundreds of medical disciplinary records, prisoner medical records and court filings, the report concludes that correctional healthcare is fraught with conditions that allow problematic doctors to flourish.
Even when a doctor’s mistake results in a permanent disability, prisoners have few options to seek better treatment or push for accountability. A federal law passed in the 1990s placed restrictions on when a prisoner can sue over treatment. In one set of examples of the problems, a class action lawsuit filed in 2013 against the Illinois Department of Corrections alleging systemic failures in the agency’s medical services resulted in scathing findings of failures in care and oversight that led to at least 36 deaths between January 2013 and June 2014. Despite court-imposed monitoring, Type Investigations and The Appeal found that two doctors found to have preventable deaths attributed to their care remained on staff.