CA request to take over inmate health care denied (health care in fed receivership)

A federal judge rejected a request by California prison officials Wednesday to regain control of inmate health care, which has been under court-supervised receivership for six years, and said the state must first show it can provide adequate medical treatment.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson of San Francisco appointed a receiver to manage health care at California's 33 prisons in February 2006, saying the lack of proper care was killing an average of one inmate a week, and overall conditions violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The current receiver, Clark Kelso, has reported improvements in the prisons' medical staff and facilities, and said a "turnaround plan" he proposed for the system in 2008 is about 80 percent complete. A new prison hospital in Stockton, with 1,700 beds, is due to be completed at the end of 2013.

The prisons are also less crowded, in response to a U.S. Supreme Court order a year ago requiring a population reduction of more than 30,000 inmates by next spring. Most of the reduction so far is the product of Gov. Jerry Brown's program of sentencing low-level felons to county jails instead of state institutions.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/30/BATG1OPP0S.DTL