Des Moines, Iowa — State officials have rejected bids from companies applying to provide medical care inside Iowa’s nine prisons, and Governor Kim Reynolds says it made sense to check to see if a private company could provide those services more efficiently than state-paid prison staff.
About 300 state employees who provide medical care to Iowa prison inmates would have been affected if a private company had been hired to do the work. Dozens of medical staff in Iowa prisons resigned after they were informed this summer that the state might hire a private company to do the work. Iowa Public Radio was first to report last week’s decision against privatizing prison medical care.
KIWA Staff Photo…