Natalie Kirkpatrick believes the Illinois prison system is deliberately neglecting her son.
Connor Kirkpatrick is incarcerated at downstate Big Muddy River Correctional Center. After attempting to take his own life by burning down his dad’s empty Lakewood home in May 2023, he was sentenced in August to 10 years in prison.
By then, the 31-year-old had struggled with his mental health for most of his adult life. He was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder about a decade ago. He’s also partially paralyzed from injuries suffered in a car crash.
When Connor was sentenced, the judge in his case ordered the state to ensure regular access to his medications. That hasn’t happened. In an email to the Sun-Times, Natalie wrote that since entering state custody, Connor hasn’t consistently received his medications for mental illness, cholesterol and blood pressure. He is also often denied Tylenol to help manage chronic pain tied to his paralysis.
“What is happening inside these facilities is not just poor administration. It meets the definition of deliberate medical neglect,” Natalie wrote in the email.
Centurion Health, one of the nation’s largest correctional medicine companies, has been the medical provider for the Illinois Department of Corrections since last July. And a year into Centurion’s short tenure, people inside Illinois prisons say their medical needs are severely neglected.
In nearly a dozen emails and letters like Natalie’s, incarcerated people and their loved ones shared with the Sun-Times and WBEZ’s Prisoncast! how their health has deteriorated as they wait for doctor’s appointments, testing and medications. The transition to Centurion has also complicated people’s health care and left at least one subcontractor for IDOC’s previous provider unpaid.
Centurion did not respond to a request for comment.
Natalie worries her son’s inconsistent medical care may actually worsen his condition.
“Are we going to receive a son back into public life less stable than when he went in?” she asked during an interview with the Sun-Times.
‘What in God’s name are we paying for?’
Late last June, the Illinois Department of Corrections abruptly severed ties with Wexford Health Sources, backing out of a 10-year, $4 billion contract with that firm. Since then, the state has been extending a short-term emergency contract with Centurion.
After twice extending a 90-day contract, IDOC and Centurion entered into a one-year, $507 million contract in January that expires next year.
“That’s a shocking amount of money,” said Jennifer Vollen-Katz, the executive director for the independent prison monitor John Howard Association. “To see over $500 million go toward one year of health care, and then to see such poor health care come from that. What in God’s name are we paying for? It’s really troubling.”
Centurion came to the state with a poor track record. The for-profit company was hired by Illinois officials despite allegations of substandard medical care causing preventable harm and even death to people locked up in prisons and jails, according to a Sun-Times examination of more than 100 lawsuits.
A corrections department spokesperson would not answer questions about negotiations with Centurion to ink a longer-term contract, saying there are “no further updates at this time.”
A Sun-Times investigation into the current health care conditions within state prisons found that the state’s critically understaffed facilities struggle to deliver proper correctional medicine to the tens of thousands of incarcerated people in their care.
Charles King is incarcerated at Sheridan Correctional Center. He says he’s been waiting months for a prostate cancer screening after he received concerning results in January.
UI Health conducted a blood test for King to detect early signs of prostate cancer. King’s results were off the charts, according to testing documents he shared with Prisoncast! and the Sun-Times.
“IDOC is delaying and purposely denying me a needed urology prostate cancer screening,” King, 62, wrote in a grievance in April — a copy of which he sent to Prisoncast! and the Sun-Times. “Medical personnel … need to take serious the fact that older men are humans whose lives are not to be finalized because they willfully choose not to give them medical treatment.”
King, incarcerated for over 20 years, says he has yet to receive a referral to a urologist for further testing.
IDOC declined to comment on King’s and Kirkpatrick’s allegations of medical neglect, citing health care privacy laws.
‘A large corporation is screwing us’
The sudden shift to Centurion also affected subcontractors delivering care to incarcerated people.
Marc O’Neal is a physical therapist based in Will County who owns and operates Brightmore Physical Therapy. His company contracted with IDOC early last year to provide physical therapy to men housed at the Joliet Treatment Center.
“I liked working with that community. It doesn’t bother me. I enjoyed helping them,” O’Neal said.
But when IDOC ended its deal with Wexford, his 25 patients stopped coming, and Wexford has yet to pay him an outstanding $11,000 bill for services provided before IDOC canceled Wexford’s contract.
Wexford representatives told O’Neal they won’t pay him until Illinois pays Wexford, but they wouldn’t elaborate on what amount the state owes Wexford and why.
Wexford did not respond to requests for comment on O’Neal’s outstanding bill. IDOC declined to comment.
“That is not a huge amount of money for them. They could easily cut that check,” O’Neal said. “We are a local, family-owned small business and a large corporation is screwing us. And they’re blaming it on the state and holding us hostage.”
Vollen-Katz said lawmakers should do more to ensure better health care in Illinois prisons and demand an accounting of how IDOC and its contractors spend taxpayer dollars.
Gov. JB Pritzker’s office, Wexford and Centurion did not respond to requests to comment. And despite some lawmakers saying in December they would support legislation to improve prison health care, no meaningful proposals have advanced in Springfield.
“Lawmakers are in a great position to access information that’s harder or impossible for the public to see,” Vollen-Katz said. “They can also ask the agency, ‘What is all this money doing? Where is it going? Is it having the impact the agency says it will when they are asking for all this money?'”