After Ike damaged Galveston hospital, prisoners shipped elsewhere in Texas
By Mike Ward
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, November 14, 2008

Damage from Hurricane Ike could keep much of the Texas prison system's primary hospital in Galveston closed for months, increasing security risks as more than 100 convicts have to be treated in public hospitals, officials said Thursday.

Brad Livingston, the prison system's executive director, said administrators at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have promised to reopen some of the prison hospital's 365 beds later this month, but a full reopening is indefinite. Currently, a limited number of inmates are going to the facility for clinic visits, not overnight stays.

"It creates a real challenge," Livingston said. "It goes without saying that security risks go up."

Instead of sending convicts to Galveston for treatment, prison officials for weeks have been housing the bulk of them in public hospitals at the University of Texas at Tyler, Huntsville Memorial Hospital and a hospital in Conroe, among others. It wasn't clear Thursday whether any were in the Austin area.

In other parts of Texas, convicts are being transported to local hospitals for treatment or they are being treated at prison infirmaries — normally reserved for minor care.

In addition to extra costs of treatment at local hospitals, officials said convict-patients also require around-the-clock security. "There will be additional costs. How much, we don't know at this point," said Dr. Lanette Linthicum, the prison system's medical director.

Livingston and UTMB officials, who on Wednesday got orders to lay off 3,800 UTMB employees as a result of an estimated $710 million in hurricane-related damage to the Galveston complex of hospitals and labs, said they also do not know the final cost of the alternate care.

"(UTMB) has promised us they will eventually return Hospital Galveston to pre-Ike conditions," Livingston said. "We're not thinking about moving the (prison) hospital out of Galveston."

Members of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, who quizzed prison officials about the hurricane damage and cost estimates during a Capitol hearing Thursday, expressed concerns about the cost of having the primary prison hospital out of service for so long.

"I also have a concern about having many violent inmates in public hospitals around the state," said Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chairman of the committee. "It's a very unhealthy situation."

Although the seven-story prison hospital escaped with minimal damage, partly because it was built on higher ground, it sits next to UTMB's John Sealy Hospital complex and related facilities that were heavily damaged.

Linthicum said 33 beds have been temporarily upgraded for hospital care at the Young Unit near Dickinson, on the mainland just north of Galveston, until the UTMB facility fully reopens. Doctors who would normally practice in Galveston are now working there, she said.

When it was fully operational, the 25-year-old prison hospital saw between 250 and 300 convict-patients daily for appointments at specialty clinics and had a listed capacity of 365 in-patient convicts.

It services prisons in Texas' eastern two-thirds, which UTMB cares for under contract with the prison agency.

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