THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, October 2, 1995                TAG: 9510020044
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: RICHMOND                           LENGTH: Medium:   61 lines

VIRGINIA PRISONS: U.VA. TO STUDY UNIT WHERE 8 HAVE DIED

University of Virginia experts will investigate a prison dialysis unit where inmates and their families say serious deficiencies in medical care persist, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Sunday.

Eight dialysis patients have died at Greensville Correctional Center since December. That number could be a statistical aberration, but the figure is large enough to require an investigation, experts said.

The investigation will be conducted by the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center's Division of Nephrology, Virginia Department of Corrections officials said last week.

Last month, the Corrections Department asked the company that provides health care at the prison to pay for and conduct an independent audit of the dialysis unit.

The St. Louis-based ARA Health Services Inc., trading under the name of Correctional Medical Systems, provides health care at Greensville, the state's largest prison. With 2,600 inmates, Greensville is where the most seriously ill dialysis patients are sent.

Problems at the prison infirmary just north of Emporia have been reported for several years and go beyond the dialysis unit. The chronology of real or alleged shortcomings shows they were not brought there by ARA.

The infirmary opened in 1991 with $258,000 worth of X-ray equipment and a 10-bed respiratory isolation ward that did not work properly then, nor two years later, the newspaper said.

Inmates could be sent elsewhere for X-rays, but tuberculosis patients were stuck in improperly ventilated rooms. By the time repairs were made to the X-ray equipment, the warranty had expired.

And by then, more problems were uncovered in a 1993 study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission and were documented in other public records - inadequate record keeping; noxious odors wafting from the biohazard waste room; and in the dialysis unit, day-old blood sometimes was found on the floor when the morning shift arrived.

Inmates interviewed by the Times-Dispatch said medical care at the prison has not improved since 1992, when ARA took over.

And the inmates said the problems have persisted since 1993, when the JLARC study said serious deficiencies in health care have put inmate and staff health at risk.

The Corrections Department insists that the problems found in 1993 have been remedied. The Greensville facility is the only accredited prison infirmary in the state.

The experts' probe of the dialysis unit could take four weeks to complete, the Corrections Department said. A summary of the findings will be made public, said Amy Miller, a corrections spokeswoman.

John D'Angelo of the National Kidney Foundation of Virginia welcomed the development.

``I'm pleased to see they hired a relatively outside group,'' D'Angelo said. ``They're with the state, but it's separate enough that it's probably as good as they could do.'' by CNB