Inmates not always getting HIV medication

David Kihara

Thursday, March 30, 2006 | 6:33 a.m.

Less than half of the HIV-positive inmates in Nevada's prisons are receiving medication to treat the virus, prison officials say.

The reason for that depends on whom you ask.

Consuelo McCuin, executive director of Diversity Leadership Institute, a Las Vegas-based nonprofit group that works with HIV-positive people and inmates, said it often receives reports from current and former inmates who say they couldn't get their medications.

Prison officials, however, say inmates often refuse to take the medications because of the harsh side effects or stop taking the medications after their health improves.

The Corrections Department says that of the 117 HIV-positive inmates in the system, about 50 are receiving medication.

"It's sad. You can't force someone to take medications," said Karen Walsh, health information officer with the Corrections Department. The only time the prison forces inmates to take medication is when a panel approves it for psychiatric patients.

Yet other groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Diversity Leadership Institute, say that the prison system isn't adequately supplying the medications.

"We're not dealing with patients in the free world, where people clearly have more choices in many instances and can change doctors if they need to," said Gary Peck, executive director of the Nevada ACLU. "These options are not available to inmates. They are at the mercy of the system."

The Corrections Department has been criticized previously for failing to provide medications to inmates at the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Center in North Las Vegas. The reason for that lapse, officials said, had to do with centralizing - at the Jean prison - the pharmacy for the 12,000 inmates in the entire prison system.

But the prison system denies that it ever refused to provide HIV medications or other medications to inmates. Walsh said the prisons will always provide "priority" medications.

"Anything like HIV medications or insulin will get filled even if they (prison staff members) have to get them at a local pharmacy," Walsh said.

Yet that assurance doesn't sit well with Peck, who said other alleged failures in the prison's health care system show that inmates are not getting medications properly.

"The statistics, sadly, are consistent with what we know about the way in which the entire prison health care system is run," he said.

Once thought to be a quick death sentence, HIV is manageable if patients receive anti-retroviral medications. The prison system spends about $480,000 annually on HIV medications, a tiny fraction of the $30 million spent for medical services throughout the system.

There are currently 94 men and 23 women who are diagnosed with HIV in the prison system. Of those, only 52 were prescribed anti-retroviral medications in November and December. That number decreased to 50 in January.

Yolanda Thomas, a 40-year-old former inmate who said she had been HIV-positive for 12 years, said she didn't take the HIV medication when she was behind bars. She said the disease had not progressed far enough for her to require HIV medications.

"My doctor said I didn't need them. The prison doctor said my T-cell count was OK," said Thomas, who was released from prison in September.

Another former inmate who is HIV positive, who declined to be identified, said she generally did not have trouble getting medications but said the prison would threaten inmates with segregation if they didn't take their medications.