A union that represents thousands of nurses and other health care workers in Florida is suing to stop the privatization of Florida’s prison health care services. Sascha Cordner has more...
In addition to last year’s prison privatization plan, the Legislature also slipped a provision into the budget to privatize health care services. Now, Florida Nursing Association Spokeswoman Jeanie Demshar says her union is hoping a judge will rule privatizing Florida’s prison health care services is unconstitutional, just like a judge ruled last year with the prison privatization plan. She says if privatizing inmate health care services goes forward, about a thousand employees will lose their jobs.
“If the privatization of the department of Corrections’ health services goes forward, a lot of people out there could lose their jobs and we’re really concerned about that. And, these are people who have not had a raise in six year, eight years actually, they working for very low pay and they work very hard, and we want to do everything we can to protect them.”
Currently, the Department of Corrections is moving forward with allowing private vendors to submit their bids until Monday. A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections says the lawsuit is under review.
