By Terry L. Jones
The Advocate
BATON ROUGE, La. — A new report by a national advocacy group slams Louisiana jails and prisons for failing to provide basic HIV services — like testing and continuous medical treatment — to inmates.
The report, released Tuesday by Human Rights Watch, also says parish prisons fail to link HIV-positive prisoners to the proper medical care providers in local communities after they are released from the prison system.
HIV is the virus that can cause AIDS.
Officials with Human Rights Watch, along with state representatives and people living with HIV, discussed the report’s findings on the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol Tuesday. The news conference was to launch an initiative titled, “Paying the Price: Failure to Deliver HIV Services in Louisiana Parish Jails.”
“Louisiana is ‘ground zero’ for two epidemics in the U.S., with the highest rate of new HIV infections and an incarceration rate above the national average,” Megan McLemore, the report’s author and senior health researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a news release. “The lack of treatment affects both people with HIV and the entire community, because whoever goes into jail comes back out.”
The 70-page report asserts that only five of Louisiana’s 104 jails offer HIV testing to every inmate booked into a facility — which is recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Those five facilities are the Orleans Parish Prison, Jefferson Parish Prison, East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, West Baton Rouge Parish Jail and the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center.
And the reports says HIV treatment in many local prisons is often delayed, interrupted and/or denied altogether.
“Several jail officials said they don’t conduct routine HIV testing because they can’t afford to treat those who test positive,” the report reads.
In response to the report, Chad Guillot, the administrator who oversees medical operations at the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, said their facility makes every effort it can to provide the appropriate medical care for inmates.
“I cannot speak to what other facilities across Louisiana provide as far as testing but EBRP has always provided proper testing of inmates when necessary within all state and local laws,” Guillot said in an emailed response to the report.
In 2014, 1,306 inmates were tested at EBR with eight new positive diagnoses of HIV identified, according to the report. In 2015, 1,394 inmates were tested at EBR with four new positives identified, the report says.
Col. Richie Johnson, spokesman for the West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office, said their facility only tests inmates for HIV when requested by prisoners.
“They are asked on booking documents if they have HIV/AIDS,” he said. “(And) we do provide basic HIV/AIDS services.”
WBR conducted no tests in 2014 and 62 tests in 2015, finding one new positive, the reports says.
Amy Barrios, spokeswoman with the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office, confirmed Tuesday morning every inmate booked into the parish jail is given the option for HIV screening.
“They can deny that screening, but at that very moment we offer it to them,” she said.
According to the report, in 2014, Orleans Parish Prison tested 8,172 inmates for HIV resulting in 19 new positives. In 2015, the parish prison tested 9,822 inmates and uncovered 26 new HIV cases, the report says.
The Human Rights Watch report was released Tuesday in conjunction with the Louisiana AIDS Advocacy Network’s Legislative Awareness Day.
The nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization, is asking state leaders for reforms in Louisiana’s criminal justice system that would promote better alternatives to incarceration. Doing so would reduce a lot of the fiscal burden local jails are now dealing with to provide medical care to prisoners, the reports says.
Human Rights Watch culled the data of its report from interviews with more than 100 people — some of whom were recently released from parish jails — medical staff at parish jails, HIV service providers, health department officials and local authorities.
Some of those interviewed claim they were locked up for days, weeks, and sometimes months without receiving HIV medication. Marvin Aguillard told Human Rights Watch that while he was locked up in the Orleans Parish Prison in 2012 he became seriously ill after not receiving HIV medications for 41 days.
Barrios responded Tuesday saying it’s “highly unlikely” that occurred but she would need to research the situation further.
The report notes that local prisons are struggling financially to meet the medical needs of prisoners after the state’s recent privatization of LSU charity hospitals which formerly provided subsidized medical services to state and local prisoners.
And many federally-funded programs financed through the Ryan White Act to treat people with HIV exclude incarcerated people from coverage.
The report also criticizes the Louisiana Department of Corrections pointing out that the same federally-fund care available to HIV-positive inmates housed at any of its nine facilities is not made available to DOC inmates housed at parish prisons throughout the state.
However, Dr. Raman Singh, medical director of the state Department of Corrections, says in the report that state prisoners with HIV are not housed in parish jails.
Once identified as HIV-positive, the are assigned to a DOC facility, or if they are presently in a parish jail they are quickly transferred to a state facility, he said.
But Human Rights Watch claims it spoke with several DOC prisoners in parish jails who say even after disclosing their HIV-postive status in an attempt to be transferred to a state facility, their transfers were either delayed or never happened.
The report goes on to say that one in three HIV-positive in the state don’t get the continuous care they need to stay healthy. Human Rights Watch attributes some of that to prisons not linking recently-released inmates to community services available to them after their release.
National research has shown that patients who adhere to daily medication regimes have lowered the amount of virus in their bodies which reduces transmission of the virus to others.
“The government is obligated to provide medical care to people living with HIV in parish jails,” McLemore said in her statements. “But treatment in the community is a win-win situation for everyone concerned.”
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