WITNESS
Dr. Joe Goldenson has been the Program Director and the Medical Director for the San Francisco Public Health Department's Jail Health Services (JHS) since 1993. JHS is responsible for providing medical, mental health, and dental services to the approximately 2,000 individuals incarcerated in the San Francisco County Jails.
Dr. Goldenson serves as a medical expert appointed by the federal court in three cases related to health care provided to prisoners — Madrid v. Woodford (Pelican Bay State Prison, California), Austin, et.al. v. Wilkinson (Ohio State Penitentiary), and Plata v. Schwarzenegger (California state prisons). Dr. Goldenson has also been involved in evaluations of the health care services in the Wisconsin Supermax Correctional Facility, the Los Angeles County Jail, the Dallas County Jail, and the Jefferson County Jail (Port Townsend, Washington).
Dr. Goldenson is a member of the California Medical Association's Corrections and Detentions Health Care Committee. He has served as a consultant to the Francis J. Curry National Tuberculosis Center and is currently a member of a committee revising the Center for Disease Control's guidelines for the management of tuberculosis in correctional facilities. Dr. Goldenson is a fellow of the Society of Correctional Physicians and has served as secretary and treasurer of the Society. He has been an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Francisco since 1980.
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STATEMENT
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Estelle v. Gamble that it is the "government's obligation to provide medical care for those whom it is punishing by incarceration." …Unfortunately, almost 30 years after Estelle, the state of health care in many correctional systems remains poor and inadequate and fails to meet the constitutional standard set by the Supreme Court. Lack of timely access to routine, specialty, and emergency care; lack of chronic care programs; incompetent and inadequate care; and deficient medical records systems are common problems.
Recently, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson decided to place California's state prison health care delivery system under receivership.… Judge Henderson concluded that "horrifying details" presented in a series of hearings over the past month had filled him with a sense of urgency and persuaded him that the California Department of Corrections was unable to manage medical care without outside help.… Judge Henderson based his conclusions on the findings of a panel of three court appointed medical experts, of which I was one.… it is important to note that I have found similar problems in my reviews of cases from other systems, including prisons and jails in Utah, Nevada, Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
The lack of adequate medical care in correctional facilities leads to unsafe conditions and… can rise to the level of abuse. Individuals are taken away from their families and community and sent to prison as punishment. The pain and suffering resulting from poor medical care is not supposed to be part of that punishment. Provision of inadequate health care creates needless pain and suffering for the many prisoners who require such services. In its most appalling form, inadequate care transforms a prison sentence into a death sentence.
Excerpted from a written statement submitted to the Commission
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Note: Some witnesses submitted documents in addition to the written statement they prepared for the hearing. In most cases, those documents are not available on the Commission's web site.
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