Corizon is a correctional facility health care provider hired usually by municipalities using money to help run jails, prisons, etc. Corizon was formed from a merger of a couple of health care correctional providers. Corizons main function is to provide all the health care such as nursing staff etc. For inmates in jails and correctional/rehab type facilities.
This article will talk about primarily the Polk County Jail in Frostproof, FL. This facility is currently under the management of Jason Berkowitz.
Some of the medical departments are way understaffed with proper nursing personnel. The under staffing is leading to many things that can and most likely will go wrong. The entire nursing staff agrees to this and will state here that in some departments lives are in danger. The lives being referred to are of the nursing staff and the inmates. This particular jail is adding many new inmates and is also in the process of adding on to the building to accept many more inmates. A few of us have far too many inmates actually walking around in the open sometimes up near the one hundred mark. It is also this many Corizon is expecting one nurse to oversee along with handle the entire jail emergency issues.
Corizon is putting many staffed individuals at risk with their state licensing due to the simple fact of not staffing correctly, overloading the staff, and literally exhausting the staff. It is common when your shift should be through around 12 hours to work another 2 maybe even 3.
Under the leadership of Mr. Jason Berkowitz the staff has put up with rampages of anger from him, sexual harassment, and just all around misguided leadership.
At the time of this writing Mr Jason Berkowitz is very well aware of these issues. His immediate superior, and hers is also very well aware. No action has been taken! They have talked and basically have said deal with it. More staff will not be hired as of now. Their ideas of trying to rotate staff from point A to point B is not working either.
Unfortunately this is putting Corizon in a very bad situation. Hopefully Corizon will someday correct the under staffing problems in the departments with the issues. If the issues are not addressed lives are at stake. (Nursing and Inmates)
When Correctional Medical Services (CMS) merged with (PHS) to form Corizon we were told how much better it was going to be. We were told that Corizon is a family type of atmosphere and so on. It has been everything but this. It is a company that is exhausting their employees, keeping them from their families with ludicrous hours. It is number crunching and shorting in areas of staffing help. It is a company that like most in business want the dotted line signed when it comes time for a contract, but the management of Corizon at the Frostproof, FL Jail simply does not care, and does not want to work solving the issues. They would rather insult, yell, and have people in tears just like what they have done and continue to do.
Corizon has not only made it exhausting and dangerous to our nursing staff, it is also not fair to the people paying for this facility to run.
Polk County Sheriffs Department has had many "mock up emergency type drills". To this date there has been nursing staff that has showed up in a timely fashion and handled the procedure according.in a real situation since we are extremely overloaded it would not be surprising to see a medical emergency not being able to be properly handled.
This letter has been written from contributions of the personnel in nursing at the South Polk County Jail employed by Corizon.
We expect no retaliation for posting our opinions. We hope the harassment and the behavior of Mr. Jason Berkowitz will seize and desist. We hope that Mr. Jason Berkowitz and his superiors will rectify these issues very soon.
The entire staff employed by Corizon at the Polk County South Jail is in dismay over the situations at this facility.
We hope Mr. Grady Judd is listening as well. We hope Corizon will use the money they are receiving wisely and supply adequate staff to give adequate care!
This will make a healthier environment for everyone involved and make a better team of good nursing staff that can supply the health care needed!
Sincerely,
Nursing Staff of Polk County South Jail Florida
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