UT officials shouldn't be involved in picking panelists to examine inmate care, they say

By Mike Ward
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, November 22, 2002

Prison reform advocates and government watchdog groups Thursday called for University of Texas System officials to withdraw from helping to select an independent team to study the quality of the medical care UT provides in Texas prisons.

The calls came after the Austin American-Statesman discovered Wednesday that of the seven doctors UT officials had recommended, two have had their medical licenses suspended or revoked in other states, another had been cited earlier this year for negligence and the others either graduated from UT medical schools or had professional ties to UT and prison officials.

Embarrassed UT officials immediately ordered a new search.

Last month, UT System Chancellor Mark Yudof asked Texas Health Commissioner Eduardo Sanchez to appoint an evaluation team of three people with laudable records in correctional health and without ties to Texas prisons or the UT System. UT officials and the Health Department compiled the list of physicians who would conduct a special study of the state's prison clinics.

In scrapping the candidates list Wednesday, UT officials kept only one name: Steven Shelton, medical director for Oregon's prison system, even though Shelton is an officer of the Society of Correctional Physicians with Lannette Linthicum, medical director for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

"It stinks for the people whose work is going to be reviewed to be suggesting the candidates," said Yolanda Torres, a Huntsville-area lawyer who monitors conditions in Texas prisons. "It's ridiculous for candidates with this background to be on the list. It appears there is no intent to do a legitimate review."

Meredith Rountree, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Prison and Jail Accountability Project, which monitors Texas prison conditions, said the involvement of UT System officials in selecting team members "does not inspire any confidence that this report will truly be independent."

"We think the (prison health-care) system has some very serious problems that demand a top-notch and independent review," she said.

Yudof called for the evaluation in response to continued complaints from inmates, their families and advocates for prisoners about the quality of care. The UT Medical Branch provides health care to 80 percent of Texas' 146,000 inmates. The Texas Tech University System cares for the rest.

UT System administrators and Health Department officials insisted that they remain confident that the process for selecting the evaluation team can work with UT System officials involved.

"From day one, Chancellor Yudof has told Eduardo Sanchez that he was free to select anyone he wanted to -- and that we were only offering the list of candidates to help," said Michael Warden, a UT System spokesman. "We want an independent evaluation and remain ready to help in this process however we can."

Rountree and several others suggested that an independent national group such as the National Institute of Corrections, an arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, would be appropriate to do the study or assist with it.

Suzy Woodford, executive director of Common Cause Texas, echoed those sentiments. She said Shelton should be dropped from the list of candidates because of his professional tie to Linthicum.

"Based on their performance so far, UT needs to back out of the selection process," she said.

"It's analogous to Enron hiring an independent auditor and then choosing which auditors do the audit. It doesn't work," echoed Tom Smith, Texas director of Public Citizen.

"I see no evidence that it is harder to find impartial experts in the prison field than in other fields," said state Rep. Terri Hodge, D-Dallas, a member of the House Corrections Committee, which oversees prison health care. Hodge has been a critic of the quality of inmate care.

mward@statesman.com