California's prison health care employees work hard – or so it would
seem by their schedules.. Many average 12 hours a day; others
routinely log 16- to 18-hour shifts for months on end, creating a
costly overtime free-for-all in this budget-strapped state.
An abundance of forced and voluntary overtime has driven some nurses
beyond human endurance. In the process, the long hours have opened
the door for deadly lapses in a health care system just beginning to
recover from decades of neglect.
"People who are pushing it to that level, working a ridiculous number
of hours, usually crash," said Yolanda Esparza, a certified nursing
assistant who works evenings and some nights at the California
Institution for Women in Corona.
"I myself have witnessed people sleeping at their posts – heavily,
snoring, full sleep. They don't even notice people walking by. It's
pretty common," Esparza said.
Asked what happens when nurses are found sleeping on the job – a
gross violation of prison rules – one prison nursing director said
simply, "We would wake them up." Often, she said, the nurse is then
sent back to work.
A Bee investigation found that lax recruitment, worsened by the state
budget crisis, and programs such as one for the suicidal that's
exploited by savvy inmates, have contributed to extreme staff work
schedules. Correctional officials have tolerated the practice despite
criticism about the price of prison health care, which cost more than
$2.1 billion in the year ending in June 2008.
In 2006, a federal judge appointed a receiver to combat substandard
medical care in California prisons. Clinics were upgraded, services
added and wages boosted – usually well above rates paid in regular
hospitals. Incompetent doctors and nurses were ousted, and many new
clinicians were hired. Care improved.
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Source: The Fresno Bee
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