Doctor who warned about prisoner care gets $822K after an inmate suicide
California has awarded more than $800,000 to a prison psychiatrist who said he was retaliated against after he warned that conditions at San Quentin State Prison would endanger inmates.
Christopher Wadsworth, the prison's former chief psychiatrist, got an $822,000 settlement last year after alleging that a change in mental health protocol contributed to an inmate's suicide in 2014. He claimed he experienced years of professional retaliation after warning his supervisors that a plan to temporarily restrict the number of San Quentin's acute crisis beds would endanger inmates and contradict provisions of a court agreement that governs mental health services.
The lawsuit, filed in 2015, concluded this year when Wadsworth accepted a transfer to Folsom State Prison.
At one point in 2016, the state corrections department had been prepared to give him a $2.9 million settlement, according to emails from state lawyers that are included in court records. Wadsworth had a falling out with his attorney and wound up with the smaller sum.
His case has an echo in an ongoing dispute in federal court in which California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's chief psychiatrist Michael Golding has disclosed a "secret report" that alleges state officials have provided misleading and inaccurate information to a federal overseer regarding mental health services.
Both cases turn on a longrunning lawsuit known as Coleman vs. Brown that compels the state to provide a basic level of mental health care to inmates. Golding's report stalled an agreement that would have allowed the state to reduce the number of prison doctors it employs. They typically earn between $250,000 and $300,000 a year.
Wadsworth insisted in his settlement that he retain the right to publicly discuss his case, but he has declined to speak with The Sacramento Bee because he is worried about professional repercussions.
Wadsworth had a fast-progressing career at San Quentin until he raised concerns about a plan to temporarily use a set of beds reserved for condemned inmates experiencing acute mental health crises for other purposes. He joined the prison in 2011 and was named its chief psychiatrist by 2013.
In 2014, according to his lawsuit, San Quentin was preparing an expansion of mental health services to comply with the court mandate.
It needed several months to open the 40 beds it promised for a fully developed psychiatric inpatient program.
In the meantime, prison executives aired a proposal in late 2013 to use some of its existing acute mental health crisis beds for other inmates with less urgent needs.
Wadsworth at the time warned that reducing the number of beds reserved for patients experiencing acute crises could backfire if it caused the prison to place them in overflow cells with fewer safeguards.
In March 2014 he urged that San Quentin reserve at least six mental health crisis beds because the prison consistently had the number of inmates using them in the months leading up to the change.