Improving health care in prisons to cost $3.5M

COLUMBUS (AP) -- The cost of improving health care for Ohio prison inmates could be as much as $3.5 million a year, a state corrections officials said.
Most of the expense comes from hiring 60 additional medical workers, Thomas Stickrath, assistant director of the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said Wednesday.
The state is implementing 140 recommendations made by a 15-member team that found numerous shortcomings in the health-care treatment of Ohio's 43,970 prisoners.
Prisons Director Reginald Wilkinson ordered all recommendations to be implemented, including the hiring of an assistant medical director, nursing director, 24 clinic nurses and 21 registered nurses who will serve as quality-assurance coordinators.
Gov. Bob Taft ordered the review last August after The Columbus Dispatch and WBNS-TV in Columbus found a pattern of inadequate care, wrongful deaths and dubious doctors in 33 state prisons.
Taft's budget office is helping the department examine its $1.6 billion annual budget to free money to hire the workers. It has not been determined whether lawmakers will be asked to provide additional money, Stickrath said.