Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, pushed back against a judge’s decision to provide federal oversight of health care at the state's prisons.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver ruled in Jensen v. Thornell that the state’s prison health care system will be placed under a federal receiver, who directly answers to the court.
The Phoenix-based judge found Arizona had failed to comply with numerous court orders issued throughout the nearly 14-year legal battle. Arizona prisoners sued the state in 2012, alleging the Arizona Department of Corrections violated their Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishments and failed to provide sufficient medical and health care services.
Silver cited a 2022 court-issued order that found “overarching failures in the delivery of health care as seriously insufficient staffing [and] inappropriate use of nurses beyond the scope of their licensure.”
She also found Arizona failed “to manage complex patients or employ a differential diagnosis approach" and that conditions included "substantially inadequate mental health treatment and a deficient electronic health care record system.”
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