The New York attorney general on Friday banned and fined a private provider of medical care in jails and prisons after an investigation into three deaths found that the company was operating illegally in the state.
NaphCare, an Alabama firm, was not licensed to operate as a medical provider in New York and created an affiliate that acted as the nominal provider of health services in correctional facilities in the state, according to the attorney general, Letitia James, who reached a settlement with the company.
NaphCare was supposed to provide only administrative and management services. But the attorney general found that decisions about the medical care of people in custody were in fact being made remotely in Alabama by NaphCare, despite the company having said that the newly created subsidiary, Proactive, would provide all clinical care.
The attorney general said that NaphCare “broadly controlled medical decisions” between 2020 and 2022 at the Onondaga County Justice Center and the Hillbrook Juvenile Detention Center, both of which are in Syracuse, N.Y.
As a result, the investigation found that three people died after receiving inadequate medical care, including a premature infant.
“Our investigation found that NaphCare illegally practiced medicine in New York and failed to adequately protect individuals in custody who relied on their care,” Ms. James said in a statement. “These failures put vulnerable individuals at serious risk and had devastating consequences.”
As part of the settlement, NaphCare must pay a fine of $875,000 and is barred from receiving contracts with state or local correctional facilities in New York for five years.
In a statement, NaphCare said that the attorney general investigated its role in “supporting another company’s provision of health care services,” in Onondaga County. The Alabama company said that it had dissolved its New York subsidiary and that the settlement with the state would allow it “to continue its focus on providing high-quality patient care to other partner agencies in other jurisdictions throughout the nation.”
NaphCare has said that it provides “third-party administrative services to some federal facilities located in the state of New York,” an arrangement that the company said it could continue under the settlement.
The settlement was announced amid an increasing awareness of violence and medical emergencies in New York lockups.
NaphCare, a private for-profit company, has faced multiple lawsuits across the United States in recent years. In New York, the attorney general started her investigation after reports of the deaths in Onondaga County and the possibility that flawed medical care may have played a role.
According to the investigation, the county contracted with Proactive, the NaphCare affiliate, from January 2020 through December 2022. The county paid Proactive a total of about $36 million.
During those three years, a 27-year-old woman died by suicide “without having been provided necessary medical and mental health care,” the attorney general found. The woman, Angela Peng, died while she was experiencing withdrawal from fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, according to a report by Syracuse.com. The county and NaphCare agreed to pay Ms. Peng’s family a combined $750,000.
In 2022, Cheree Byrd, who was pregnant, was being held at the Onondaga County jail, where she received no prenatal care. She went into labor prematurely, the investigation found. The State Commission of Correction’s Medical Review Board found that Ms. Byrd “made multiple complaints that her water had broken and baby’s head was in the birth canal.”
Ms. Byrd’s cries were ignored, and she gave birth alone in her cell, the attorney general said. Her newborn died at a hospital hours later, investigators found. The county settled a lawsuit brought by Ms. Byrd for $100,000.
In a third case cited by investigators, a man who was in his 60s and had medical issues, including a history of hypertension, died while in custody. The man, Kevin Gilooly, received “only intermittent treatment” for high blood pressure while being held at the jail, they said. At least once, Mr. Gilooly’s medication and the administration of those drugs were mixed up, investigators found.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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