N.C. Senator Ellie Kinnaird's Newsletter

October 23, 2011 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Ellie Kinnaird

Greetings from the North Carolina Senate,

This week the Department of Correction (DOC) provided tours of their new $155 million medical and mental health hospital at the Central Prison for Men that replaces the hospital built in the 1960's. (It didn’t even have air conditioning.). The new prison is a state of the art facility that places emphasis on public safety, safety of the staff and inmates while providing good medical care to inmates. Equally important, it will provide services on-site that used to be performed at community hospitals at a high cost thus saving the state millions every year. There are 38,000 men in the custody of the DOC. Until this facility, many inmates had to be transferred to local hospitals where the cost was high, an officer had to be present at all times and the loss of the officer transporting and staying with the prisoner in the hospital added to the cost of the medical services, which totaled $11 million annually.

The new prison treats severely and chronically ill men. The population is aging so many of the services are geriatric and hospices. The new services offered include emergency, imaging, chemotherapy, endoscopy, dialysis, orthopedics, oral surgery and outpatient surgeries along with post-op recovery rooms for those returning from a community hospital. It houses the patients in single cells, for a safer environment and fewer management complications. It will also allow for telemedicine, further reducing the costs to treat inmates. The facility even has negative pressure cells for TB and respiratory infections. The prison has a laboratory and pharmacy and electronic medical record keeping.

The mental health facility has 216 inpatient beds and 160 staff. They will perform initial screening, diagnosis and treatment. As high as 40% of inmates have some degree of mental illness, many with severe problems. (If we had early diagnosis and treatment in the community before people commit crimes, we could save millions and many damaged lives of both offender and victims. We know what to do, we just don’t commit to do it, preferring apparently to lock mentally people in our jails and prisons that are now are largest mental institutions.) There are 48 Crisis Level beds, 96 intensive Level beds, 72 Long Term beds with open-air exercise areas (in reality, just large cages.)

Staff admission to the hospital is by thumb print recognition and swipe cards, for maximum security. Even though I have visited many prisons, it is always a shock to see thick steel doors, cells with injury proof features and chairs bolted to the floor and the loud retort of the doors opening and closing. The sad part is that the windows are too high to see out of - everyone would be better off with a good sized window with a tree outside. Why such deprivation? The state will save money and inmates will have better treatment because of these two facilities. I was glad to have been a part of it when I was Co-chair of Appropriations of Justice and Public Safety.

For history buffs, a symposium titled A Radical Notion of Democracy: Law, Race and Albion Tourgée," will be held at the State Library Building on November 4th. A lawyer, judge, novelist and activist, Tourgée worked for racial equality in the state for thirteen years. His legacy lives on in the provisions of the state Constitution guaranteeing free public education, as well as other reforms. He later achieved national fame for representing Homer Plessy in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the U.S. Supreme Court case that established separate-but-equal facilities as the foundation of de jure segregation.

A disagreement over the role and size of government in our lives continues on the state and national levels. The two viewpoints seem to be symbolized by the Tea Partiers on the one side and the Occupy Wall Street on the other. Having visited the Occupy Franklin Street site twice, I find it embodies community spirit with a donation table, a stack of blankets and sleeping bags for the occupiers, much food and a friendly environment. Even a paper plate sign for visitors to hold up saying; “I am a 99%er” if you wish to participate. I believe the movement embodies the beliefs and values expressed in the Preamble to the Constitution “to promote the general Welfare” and I hope Congress and all those who govern us, are listening.

Paid for by Ellie Kinnaird for Senate • Campaign Address: PO Box 668, Carrboro, NC 27510 • 919-918-3432
Legislative Office Address: Room 628 LOB, 300 N. Salisbury St., Raleigh, NC 27603 •