HARRISBURG - Decision time is nearing on a plan to privatize medical services at state correctional institutions, the corrections secretary said Monday.
Secretary John Wetzel said a recommendation could come from his agency in several weeks on whether to proceed with the outsourcing of nurse and medical records services at the prisons.
The recommendation will go to Gov. Tom Corbett and be based on both cost-savings and service delivery considerations, he told the Pennsylvania Press Club.
The department has obtained bids from companies that specialize in prison management as part of efforts to maintain corrections spending at current levels of $1.9 billion in the 2012-13 state budget.
Wetzel said the main factor driving correction costs is the $90-a-day expenditure to incarcerate each of 51,500 inmates.
A House Republican lawmaker has sponsored legislation to block the agency from spending state dollars to hire private companies to provide medical services. Outsourcing would impact two state prisons which are the largest employers in his district, said Rep. Mike Fleck, R-81, Huntingdon.
Critics of the proposal say outsourcing could impair prison security.
The average corrections department nurse has been on the job for 11 years and knows the inmates and security protocols, said Kim Patterson, secretary-treasurer of SEIU Healthcare PA, at a recent House committee hearing.