By Craig Harris
The Republic
PHOENIX, Ariz. — The American Friends Service Committee-Arizona, a Quaker group critical of the way Arizona prison inmates are treated, turned up the heat Wednesday on the Department of Corrections by renewing claims that the state delays and denies medical care to prisoners.
Caroline Isaacs, the group’s program director, said at a late-morning news conference just outside DOC headquarters in Phoenix that the state fails to provide medication and medical devices to inmates, allows low staffing levels by a private contractor and has insufficient mental-health treatment for those in its charge.
She cited her group’s calculation that there have been 50 deaths, including eight suicides, within the prison system during the first eight months of this calendar year, as an example of how the DOC is not providing proper health care.
“Anyone would agree that 50 deaths is 50 too many,” Isaacs said in an interview.
Full story: Prison health care criticized