Missed doctor visits among sick Rikers Island inmates are on the rise as city jails face a spate of medically-related deaths behind bars, according to a new report.
And correction officers are to blame for failing to escort inmates to their scheduled appointments, according to the Board of Correction.
Last year, 23 percent of inmates didn’t show up to appointments at city jails and off-site clinics, up from the 21 percent missed-appointment rate in the second half of 2017, the board’s data shows. The top reason was the Department of Correction’s failure to produce inmates, accounting for 64 percent, or 89,681 scrapped appointments.
Inmates didn’t show to 16 percent of appointments because they conflicted with court dates. Mental health checkups had the highest no-show rate: 31 percent.
“The city is headed in the wrong direction [on this issue],” said Councilman Keith Powers, who heads the Committee on Criminal Justice.
BOC spokesman Bennett Stein called the missed appointments “a shocking waste of government resources” and said “people with identified, often serious medical problems” are among the absent.
The BOC data comes after two inmate deaths at the city’s troubled lockups this month.
Layleen Polanco, a 27-year-old transgender inmate, died in her cell on June 7 after guards ignored the unresponsive con for two hours, according to a prisoner witness.
Two days later, inmate Jose Rivera, 54, died in DOC custody at Bellevue Hospital.
Last year, the state Correction Commission blamed missed medical appointments for the 2016 death of Angel Perez-Rios, 44, at Rikers.
He didn’t make multiple doctor visits because of lockdowns and a lack of guard escorts before hanging himself inside his cell.
A BOC spokesman said the board has requested the medical records in the two recent inmate deaths but current laws require a court-ordered subpoena.
DOC spokesman Peter Thorne said the agency is “working to ensure that everyone in need of care is seen by a medical professional in a timely manner” and has added new escort officers.