Lawsuit could force SC to spend tens of millions to treat inmates for Hepatitis C

A lawsuit that could require the S.C. Department of Corrections to spend tens of millions of dollars to treat thousands of prison inmates with Hepatitis C, a potentially fatal liver disease, was filed Tuesday in federal court.

The lawsuit was filed by inmate Russell Geissler, 34, of Greenville, who is serving a roughly 10-year sentence for charges including armed robbery. It claims that up to 6,000 of the state’s inmates may have Hepatitis C, a liver infection especially prevalent among prison inmates..

The lawsuit alleges failing to treat the disease violates the inmates' constitutional rights, barring cruel and unusual punishment. It seeks class-action status and asks a federal judge to order immediate testing of the prison system’s approximately 19,000 inmates. S.C. prisons do not systematically test inmates for Hepatitis C, the lawsuit says.

A similar federal suit was brought against the Florida prison system. In that case, a federal judge last fall ordered that state’s prison system to diagnose and treat the most infected inmates.

The judge in that case found that Florida had "a long and sordid history of failing to treat Hepatitis C-infected inmates." Not treating them amounted to a violation of their Eighth Amendment rights, showing "deliberate indifference" to inmates' serious medical needs.

Last week, the state of Massachusetts tentatively settled a similar federal lawsuit, agreeing to begin testing and treating its inmates. Similar class-action lawsuits are pending in a dozen other states.

Prison inmates have a constitutional right to appropriate and timely medical treatment from the state, the courts have held.

There is effective treatment for Hepatitis C. New drugs to treat it began to come on the market in 2013, and treatment nearly always is successful, according to medical authorities. However, left untreated, Hepatitis C can lead to liver cancer, liver failure or other severe ailments.

The biggest barrier to treatment is the cost of the anti-viral drugs used to treat it — costing from $25,000 to $50,000 for each prisoner. However, Hepatitis C progresses in stages, and not everyone who has the infection needs to be treated at once.

Hepatitis C is spread by exposure to blood or blood products. The most common way to contract the disease is through intravenous drug use, but people also can be infected through tattooing or blood transfusions.

Prison officials did not respond Tuesday to the suit. However, the S.C. Department of Corrections is aware of the dangers of Hepatitis C.

“We have begun to treat Hepatitis C inmates with a new drug regimen that has over a 95 percent cure rate,” prisons Director Bryan Stirling wrote in his department's annual report last fall.

Last fiscal year, the department treated four inmates with the new drugs, Stirling said.

But that isn't anywhere near what is needed, the lawsuit says.

The S.C. prison system's Hep C program "will serve only 16 inmates, despite the fact that the number of infected inmates likely numbers in the thousands," the lawsuit says.

The prison system now has a partnership with the S.C. Department of Environmental Control and the University of South Carolina's Infectious Disease Program, Stirling wrote. Two doctors are on contract to work with various infectious diseases in the state's prisons, including Hepatitis C, he wrote. The prison system spends more than $70 million a year, out of its $400 million-plus budget, on inmate health care.

Geissler, an inmate since 2011, was diagnosed with Hepatitis C in January 2014. The prison system repeatedly has denied his requests for treatment, and he has exhausted "all available administrative remedies," his lawsuit says.

Christopher Bryant, the Charleston lawyer who brought the lawsuit on Geissler's behalf, said Tuesday the prison system's position is that Geissler and other inmates with Hepatitis C are "not yet sick enough for treatment."

"This is contrary to accepted medical standard of care and unacceptable in a civilized society," Bryant said, adding some inmates with untreated Hepatitis C are being released when they finish their sentences.

Outside prison, those inmates may spread the disease. If they were tested and treated while in prison, that would benefit the public as a whole, Bryant said. "It will help to slow the spread outside prisons."

Bryant acknowledged some people may not be sympathetic to giving expensive treatment to inmates.

But inmates deserve medical treatment, he said. "If someone breaks their arm in prison, we don't say, 'Hey, don't get a cast'."

Bryant is working with lawyers in the Harpootlian law firm of Columbia, which has experience in class-action litigation, and the Guttman Buschner law firm in Washington, D.C., experienced in medical and class-action issues, in the lawsuit.

This story was originally published March 13, 2018 at 11:10 AM with the headline "Lawsuit could force SC to spend tens of millions to treat inmates for Hepatitis C."