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The state prison system has closed three penal institutions in the past 11 days to reorganize staff and deal with an upsurge in COVID-19 cases, in part by creating a medical emergency unit.
The three closures are temporary, Prisons Commissioner Todd Ishee said on Monday, although he also said the possibility of state budget cuts over the next year makes that difficult to guarantee.
The system has completely suspended operations at Randolph Correctional Center. It has closed minimum security units at Southern Correctional in Montgomery County and Piedmont Correctional in Rowan County, although other units remain open.
Southern Correctional has turned some of its regular beds into hospital beds so it can serve as an emergency medical unit, Ishee said. Much of Randolph’s staff have been diverted to Greensboro so they can monitor inmates admitted to a hospital there, he said.
Prisons spokesman John Bull said only 10 inmates, of the roughly 30,000 inmates in the system, had been hospitalized with COVID-19 on Monday morning. But other inmates are coming in and out of the hospital for other issues, Bull said, and the system hopes to minimize the prisoners it sends to regular hospitals, now more taxed by the COVID outbreak in the regular population. state, especially in rural areas.
“It’s a big picture with a lot of moving parts, but prisons are trying to rely more on their medical staff, as small as they are with long-term vacations, so it there are fewer delinquents who have to go to outside establishments, ”Bull told me.
“We need additional staff and additional medical staff,” Bull said. “The shortage of nurses is severe. … We must use them where their professional capacity is maximized.”
The closures were first reported by WBTV in Charlotte. Ishee included them in a longer presentation Monday morning to lawmakers on a legislative oversight committee, and Bull said in a press release last week that further consolidations may be needed “as COVID-19 cases in the people of North Carolina continue to move in the wrong direction. “
The state’s prison system is subject to a court order over COVID precautions, and Wake County Superior Court Judge Vince Rozier schedules a status hearing on the case for Friday morning.
Ishee briefed lawmakers on Monday of a number of COVID issues in the state prison system, and the committee also heard independent proposals that it will consider when the legislature resumes next year, including one aimed at increasing the salary of correctional officers to deal with a staff shortage.
Ishee told lawmakers the system is ready for COVID vaccine shipments. He said the system didn’t know exactly when to expect them, but had to be ready by December.
According to the state’s immunization rollout plan, prisons – and in particular older and sicker staff and prisoners – will be a top priority when vaccines become available, along with nursing homes, other collective living spaces and people at high risk of severe cases of COVID. .
Ishee told lawmakers that prison workers are now tested for the virus every 14 days in high-risk locations, and 5% of staff and inmates in the system are randomly tested monthly. The system had 318 employees without work due to COVID-19 positives or exposure protocols as of Nov. 24, according to Ishie’s presentation.
Ishee also said the state has purchased 3,035 iWave air purifiers for all of its prisons and that a number of hospitals are using the technology. He told lawmakers to wait for a supplementary budget request from the system when the General Assembly plenary meets in January.
“We have spent a lot of money,” he said.
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