Miami Herald, - Tuesday, October 17 1989
Lori Rozsa, Herald Staff Writer

Since 1981, 114 inmates have died from AIDS. In the same period, only 19 prisoners were put to death by the state. Now a study indicates that nearly 3,000 inmates -- 7 percent of the 39,000 state prisoners -- may be afflicted.

In contrast, about 7,000 AIDS cases have been reported among the state's population of 12 million -- about .05 percent.

State plans for treating and preventing AIDS in prison are still unclear, however.

"Prisoners are breeding factories of the virus, and we have to remember that a lot of these people will eventually re-enter society," said Lenny Kaplan, the chairman of Fight for Life, a Broward County-based advocacy group for prisoners with AIDS.

"They're making a scratch on the problem, but it's not enough. . . . Treatment of inmates with AIDS is barbaric. Prisons are like concentration camps for AIDS victims."

Some prisoners died in hospitals, some died in prison infirmaries and some died in their cells. But it wasn't until April that prison officials considered asking for money specifically for AIDS in prison.

"We have to plan for the worst case," said Stanley Pala, the acting Department of Corrections health director. "We've never been required or had the need to break out the costs related to AIDS per se.

"It's only over the last few months that we've gotten a feel for exactly what we are paying for in the spectrum that is AIDS."

AIDS patient advocates say the state is eight years behind the times. Kaplan said the Sept. 25 death of Scott Hickson of Riviera Beach dramatizes the inadequacy of the system.

Hickson, 34, died somewhere between West Palm Beach and Miami while he was locked in a cage in a van. He was being taken from the Palm Beach County Jail to the South Florida Reception Center, where he was going to be processed for a five-year prison sentence for shoplifting and violation of probation.

Hickson had AIDS, and jail nurses said his health was so far gone he couldn't walk, could barely speak and had to be diapered by guards before he was locked into the van.

Hickson was one of three Florida inmates to die from AIDS that week.

The Correctional Medical Authority, a group appointed in 1986 by Gov. Bob Martinez to monitor health services in the prison system, is reviewing the $14 million estimate. Nearly $10 million of that would be for hospitalization of inmates too sick to be cared for in prison infirmaries, Pala said.

Martinez created the group partly to address allegations of inadequate health care made in a 1972 lawsuit filed by inmates over health care in prisons. The state still is trying to settle the case.

In 1987, the panel said the Department of Corrections should develop an AIDS policy manual because of "the prevalence of the AIDS virus among the prison population."

The group said the manual would "be directed at ultimately protecting the health of all Floridians."

The manual was written but has not yet been distributed, Pala said.

"I'm waiting for them to tell me what their policy is regarding treatment of AIDS victims," said William Shepard, a Jacksonville lawyer representing the inmates in the ongoing 1972 suit. "Nobody has seen it."

Pala said part of the problem with AIDS among inmates is that nobody knows just how prevalent the disease is in prisons, which are populated by many people in high-risk categories -- intravenous drug users and prostitutes, for example.

Wholesale AIDS testing of inmates is illegal, he said, though jails and prisons test inmates who may have been exposed to the disease or show its symptoms. Only 35 cases have been fully diagnosed.

But a recent study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that 6.9 percent of new inmates in Florida prisons tested positive for the HIV virus. Prison officials say that number is probably at least double for South Florida inmates.

Pala said the state is considering a voluntary inmate AIDS-testing program, with the aim of early intervention for those who test positive. In those cases, the drug AZT would be administered, he said.

AZT, which costs about $150 a day to administer, has been shown to slow the onslaught of serious complications from the AIDS virus.

Already, 32 inmates are being given AZT, Pala said.

"It costs us big bucks to put them in the hospital. . . . If we can keep them from getting sick, we'd only be spending pennies. . . . As managers of the taxpayers' dollars, we have to take (cost) into consideration."

A week's stay in a hospital for an inmate with AIDS can cost the state as much as $12,000, Pala said.

In July, Broward jail officials started making AZT available to inmates. It's also available to prisoners in Dade and Palm Beach jails.

"I think inmates today get better care than they have ever gotten, but the problem of AIDS is one that none of us have easy answers to," said Jim Brigham, the director of a Plantation-based firm -- Correctional Care -- that contracts prison health care.

"It's something that is going to cost taxpayers more and more money."

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