EAST MEADOW — CSEA members employed at Nassau University Medical Center (NUMC) may soon again be providing medical care to Nassau County Correctional Center (NCCC) inmates.
For more than 50 years, hospital employees provided excellent health services to the county inmates. In 2011, Nassau County officials replaced NUMC workers with a private vendor, Armor Correctional Health Services.
Under the private company, the quality of health care declined, culminating in several inmate deaths and numerous accusations of inadequate health care.
In 2016, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit against Armor, alleging that the private, for-profit vendor “either failed to perform or egregiously underperformed many of its contractual obligations, placing inmates’ health in jeopardy.”
New York state and Armor soon reached a settlement in which the company would pay a fine and would be barred from providing services in our state for three and a half years.
As this edition went to press, no other company has successfully bid on the jail health services contract.
That makes the prospect of CSEA members resuming the provision of health services for the jail imminent.
“Back in 2007 [when county officials were considering contracting out health services], I went to the Nassau County Legislature and told them about lawsuits that Armor had against them in Florida,” said Nassau County Local President Jerry Laricchiuta. “Every negative thing that I told them would happen if they were to turn our work over to Armor, happened.”
Public employees provide quality care
After Armor took over the jail’s health services, NUMC laid off about 100 CSEA members. Those are staff numbers that now need to be replaced.
CSEA Nassau County Local officials estimate there are between 30 and 40 CSEA members currently working at NUMC who want to be relocated to the jail. As those numbers still leave the jail health services understaffed, NUMC is interviewing Armor employees to potentially return to the jail as county employees.
The Armor employees are suggesting that the poor quality of service provided by Armor was not their fault.
“They said that their managers weren’t letting them write referrals or send inmates to the hospital when they needed to go,” said CSEA County Local President Jerry Laricchiuta. “People having chest pain were told to come back in two or three hours; some of them didn’t make it.”
That is just one example of the problem with a private company taking over public jobs. In many cases, the private vendor is far more concerned about boosting profits than quality of care.
Addressing concerns
NUMC administrators have expressed concerns about the public’s reaction to inmates potentially walking around the hospital. However, Nassau County Local officers came up with a resolution.
Local officers note there is an old emergency room at NUMC that is being used as storage space that can easily be converted into a secondary, satellite emergency room specifically for inmates that would prevent the public’s contact with inmates receiving care. The satellite emergency room would still provide the same services as the primary hospital emergency room.
The failed health services contract between Nassau County and Armor is even further proof that public services should stay public.
“Public service workers provide better service because we own the job,” said Laricchiuta. “None of us are walking around with a spreadsheet saying we can’t give an aspirin because we’re getting close to the bottom line.”
— Wendi Bowie
