The news came unbidden, unwelcome and--so far--unfunded. The
court-appointed receiver operating state prison healthcare plans to
build a 1,500-bed prison hospital at the site of the Ventura Youth
Correctional Facility in Camarillo.
Prisoners have a constitutional right to adequate medical care. They
are, in fact, the only class of Americans blessed with that protection.
Federal courts have ruled that incarceration without adequate
healthcare constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the
Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Plata v. Schwarzenegger was one of several federal class-action
lawsuits filed on behalf of Calif. prisoners establishing that
healthcare in
the prisons is indeed "constitutionally inadequate."
The state's response was so slow--and inadequate--that last year U.S.
District Judge Thelton E. Henderson put the entire prison healthcare
system in receivership and appointed a receiver to direct the remedy, a
move usually associated with bankruptcy.
The receiver, J. Clark Kelso, unveiled a $6.9 billion remedy
featuring 10,000 hospital beds, divided among seven sites around the
state, all close to urban areas so as to ensure a workforce. In May,
the state legislature rejected the plan.
What part of "constitutionally inadequate" does the legislature not
understand? The federal court can just take the money. Indeed, on May
29, Kelso wrote a letter to the_Calif. Department of Finance declaring
his "intention to file with your office a demand that the State of
California commit to setting aside $7 billion in the receiver's
account...." The U.S. Constitution trumps the Legislature.
It has been years since federal courts began ordering the state to
fix the prison healthcare system. The case that specifically addresses
mental healthcare, Coleman, is 13 years old. Kelso wrote in his May
letter that he could "no longer stand idly by while the state continues
its pattern of prevarication."
Meanwhile, our local community leaders have objected to a prison
hospital in our urban area and decried the loss of the more welcome
Ventura Youth Correctional Facility. But here again, what Kelso wants,
Kelso gets.
The VYCF has a long history in our county, beginning as the Ventura
School for Girls in 1913. Although boys now reside at VYCF, it is still
the only facility in California that houses girls and young women. It
would be razed to make way for the new adult prison hospital; wards
would be dispersed to other facilities.
The old Camarillo State
Hospital (1936-1997) has a distinguished history in our county. The
hospital population of mentally ill and developmentally disabled peaked
at some 7,000 in the 1960s, declining to 900 the year before its
closure. Modern medicines allowed--and state budget cuts obliged--people
with mental illness to live in their communities.
The old hospital is now the California State University Channel Islands.
Ironically, a substantial proportion of prisoners at the new
Camarillo State Prison Hospital will be mentally ill. This is due in
large part to the state's failure to provide adequate community care
following the old hospital's closure. Prisons are, after all, the only
place where people are guaranteed adequate care.
Send your thoughts to me at atatathurstonrc@dock.net
