Idaho prisoner’s untreated broken hand shows dangers of privatizing medical services | Opinion
It doesn’t matter how Bobby Templin suffered a broken bone in his hand.
However it happened, it should have been taken care of by the Idaho Department of Correction.
According to reporting by the Idaho Statesman’s Alex Brizee, Templin, a prisoner at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, suffered a broken bone at the base of his thumb while incarcerated at the Idaho State Correctional Center.
It took six months before Templin got treatment, despite repeated requests for help.
Now, Templin’s hand is disfigured and he faces the possibility of a lifetime of stiffness, limited range of motion, weakness and “persistent pain that may never go away.”
Templin says his hand was broken by rough treatment by guards; IDOC says Templin punched a wall after a group fight involving about 20 prisoners.
The fact that IDOC is quibbling over how Templin’s injury happened explains why someone could go week after week after week without treatment.
It wasn’t until a few days after the fight that doctors determined Templin’s thumb was broken. Once that diagnosis was made, it took months for Templin to get seen by a surgeon.
From February through May, Templin submitted at least two dozen health service requests – at a cost of $3 for each request.
You read that right: Templin was charged $3 just to request medical service for a broken thumb. It’s a symptom of the immoral practice of privatizing parts of our prison systems and making money off the backs of prisoners and their families.
“Broken hand is in extreme pain,” he wrote in one request. “I need to see a doctor.”
“My hand is in significant pain. My condition is worsening daily,” Templin wrote in another request. “I’m scared my hand is sustaining irreversible damage.”
He was right. According to one orthopedic surgeon who spoke with the Statesman, such fractures, if healed improperly, could lead to gross deformity and “persistent pain that may never go away.”
Despite reassurances by Centurion Health — the private, for-profit company hired to provide medical care in the prisons — that an appointment for Templin was imminent, an appointment had not been scheduled until July, six months after the break happened.
In a heartbreaking twist, Templin’s father now regrets that he ever turned in his son, who was suffering from heroin addiction and in prison for possession of a controlled substance.
“I turned him in. He was on heroin and I told him I wouldn’t put up with it,” Bob Templin told the Statesman’s Brizee. “I’m kind of sorry now that I ever turned him in, but, you know, I’m a law-abiding citizen, and I just wasn’t going to put up with it. I thought that he would get some help.”
Help was about the last thing he got.
It took so long, Templin’s broken thumb “healed with a deformity.”
Templin said his thumb is constantly swelling and hurts at the base, where it connects to his wrist, up through the finger, for which he takes Tylenol multiple times a day. Simple daily tasks, such as washing clothes or exercising, are difficult.
Templin now faces corrective surgery.
Templin’s situation was exacerbated by a shortage of doctors in Idaho — another problem that threatens quality of life in Idaho.
Regardelss, someone with a broken hand should be able to get treatment far faster than six months.
When someone is incarcerated in our society, we have a responsibility to take care of their basic needs, such as food, clothing and medical care. It’s unacceptable that a prisoner went so long without proper, necessary care.
It also speaks to the shameful practice of turning over government services to the private sector in the name of profit.
Idaho taxpayers are paying Centurion $300 million over five years to provide medical care. It’s unacceptable that Centurion can’t do its job — and even more unacceptable that no one is holding the company to account.
Statesman editorials are the unsigned opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, newsroom editors Dana Oland and Jim Keyser and community members Mary Rohlfing and Patricia Nilsson.
