Louisiana Prisons Hire Troubled Doctors to Treat Aging Population!!!

Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola

Every once in a while, I read about some doctor who has forgotten his oath and decided to commit a crime or two. What happens to these doctors once they have paid their debt to society? You never read about what they are doing after jail.

Guess what? Louisiana prisons are the final working locales for doctors who are no longer able to practice in our free society. Isn’t that the cat’s meow?  Prisoners who are forced to see the prison doctor can’t get another opinion, or check ratings online, or ask friends for a referral.

Any good health care system depends on choices for patients. No choices equals poor health care. Criminals are still humans who deserve the best health care possible, like all of us. Also, these doctors have demonstrated they have problems with their delivery of health care.

This strikes me as wholly unfair and unethical. Nevertheless the six-member state medical board can limit a doctor’s practice to an “institutional setting.”  This means a prison, a group home or a mental health facility.

The real question here is, do prisoners deserve the same level of care that we do? Inmates receive zero choice and are worked on by doctors who aren’t allowed to work on the general population.

Dixon Correctional Institute

The list of crimes that Louisiana prison doctors have committed is impressive: health care fraud, drinking on duty, possessing child pornography, self medicating with a controlled substance, sexual misconduct, and then one doctor has this list of three  more minor crimes- criminal trespass, illegal discharge of a weapon and spray painting graffiti.

Not every prison in Louisiana has a damaged doctor. Of the 15 doctors working full time in state prisons, nine have been disciplined by the state ethics board for pedophilia, dealing meth, substance abuse, and more.  Six doctors have clean records, and generally earn 50 thousand dollars per year more than the doctors who have been in jail.

~ by neworleansmusicman on July 31, 2012.