Prison warden: Inmates’ medical care neglected, constitutional rights violated
Inmate medical care has been neglected at Nevada’s maximum security prison, the prison’s warden wrote in a memo distributed to medical providers earlier this year.
Jeremy Bean, the warden of High Desert State Prison, said that there have been instances of failures to provide medical care.
Bean called the neglect a serious violation of inmates’ Eighth Amendment rights, which protect against cruel and unusual punishment.
“As medical providers, it is our duty to ensure that all individuals, including offenders, receive adequate medical care to address their health needs,” Bean wrote in the memo, which was distributed on Aug. 16 and addressed to all medical providers. “Failure to do so not only put the health of offenders at risk but also jeopardizes your professional integrity.”
When asked about the memo, William Quenga, public information officer for the Nevada Department of Corrections, said that the department could not comment on “two former practitioners,” but did not elaborate further.
“NDOC is committed to providing the best care to our population and will continue to strive to meet the needs of our population,” Quenga wrote.
Department changes medical directive
The department has since updated a medical directive that outlines the process for review of the use of outside providers for inmate patient medical care, Quenga said in an email.
A previous version of the medical directive said that the department’s utilization review panel, which reviews requests for medical care by an outside provider, would be composed of institutional practitioners, the department’s medical director and a utilization review coordinator.
According to Quenga, one of the internal providers has now been replaced by an outside provider, a change he said “should improve the efficiency and function” of the committee.
The restructuring also “unencumbers the time of the providers and allows them to return to the clinic to attend to the needs of the offender population.”
The inclusion of an outside provider on the committee “more closely resembles” similar committees that exist in the community, or in medical facilities outside of the department of corrections, according to Quenga.
Contact Estelle Atkinson at eatkinson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @estellelilym on X and @estelleatkinson.bsky.social on Bluesky.
