The headline of The Santa Barbara Independent’s August 20 article asks, “Inept Inmate Care by Corizon?” The answer is a resounding no. The story fails to paint a complete picture regarding the breadth of medical care that Corizon Health has been providing to Santa Barbara County’s inmates for 20 years. It also falls short of capturing the challenges of caring for some of the most complex patients in our society.
Our dedicated physicians and clinicians work hard day-in and day-out to offer the best possible quality of care, delivered through the most efficient practices, to one of the most vulnerable patient communities — in one of the most challenging environments imaginable. Many of our medical staff view this profession as a calling, spending much of their careers with us. Even as these circumstances make for unprecedented complexities in providing much-needed care, we view our jobs as an important component to Santa Barbara’s public health delivery system and equal in mission to that of medical professionals in the general public: We help our patients get healthy and stay that way or to heal when they are sick. As members of the Santa Barbara community, our employees understand that the health and safety of the community is dependent not only on the care they provide while our patients’ are incarcerated, but on the successful and healthy reentry of our patients into society.
Working in the corrections system presents unique obstacles. Our patients suffer from illnesses and chronic conditions, including mental illness, at a much higher rate than the general public. Oftentimes they have not had consistent — or any — access to treatment or medical care. In addition, the facilities in which we operate are structurally built for security — not the provision of care — and our nurses and doctors face many barriers to success, including unanticipated facility lockdowns and violence against healthcare workers.