RIKERS DOC FIRED FOR CALLING OUT FAILINGS
‘Revered’ physician Uhrig who worked at jail for five years
A respected physician who treated thousands of patients at Rikers Island over nearly five years was abruptly banned from the jails in November for his outspoken critiques of Correction Department management, the Daily News has learned.
James Uhrig had worked under contract for city Correctional Health Services since April 2018, treating detainees for a range of acute illnesses like asthma, diabetes, HIV a well as substance abuse disorders and psychological trauma.
In early November, without warning, Uhrig, 69, learned a notice was posted in the jails with his picture stating he was barred from Correction Department facilities, papers he filed with the city charge.
Then, his direct employer, the Physician Affiliate Group of New York, notified him the Correction Department had revoked his security clearance — effectively costing him his job.
In a notice of claim required before he can sue the city, Uhrig alleges he was barred because social media posts he made under his real name between June and November were critical of Correction Department operations.
They included posts about fentanyl overdoses, deaths at Rikers Island in 2021 and 2022, overcrowding and officers caught bringing in contraband, the claim states.
“Our client, Dr. James Uhrig, a revered physician, devoted to healing people languishing behind bars in our city’s decrepit jails, was constructively discharged from his position for daring to voice his legitimate concerns about the deadly conditions on Rikers Island and the failures of its commissioner,
Louis Molina,” said lawyer Sarena Townsend, who is representing Uhrig with attorney David Erlich.
“Without breaching any confidentiality or security, Dr. Uhrig publicly supported federal receivership, a judicial takeover that would likely put Commissioner Molina out of a job.”
In some of the tweets, Uhrig pointedly questioned Molina’s policies and tagged him.
Townsend and Erlich said Molina’s move was designed to send a “chilling message” to everyone employed in the jails.
“Rather than keep a respected, dedicated physician on his team at a time when [the Correction Department] is unable to provide timely medical care to its detainees, Molina preferred instead to shame and dismiss him,” the lawyers said.
Uhrig’s banning is one of a series of examples of the Adams administration’s efforts to limit dissent about the jails.
They include cutting off Board of Correction remote access to security video, persuading a judge to keep a federal monitor’s report secret, and stonewalling information requests by Congress and the City Council.
“Dr. Uhrig was willing to wade
into the chaos of Rikers and go the extra mile to provide excellent care to people who desperately need it, and to speak honestly about what he saw there,” said Sarita Daftary, co-director of the advocacy group Freedom Agenda.
“Barring him from doing this work over some tweets shows that [the Correction Department] is more concerned with hiding their dysfunction than they are with getting critical medical care to people in their custody.”
Molly Biklen, deputy legal director for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the U.S.
Supreme Court has held that government contractors like Uhrig don’t lose their constitutional right to speak on issues of public concern — which would include the conditions at Rikers.
“It appears to be another example of the [Correction Department] trying to shut down public scrutiny at a time when more discussion is important,” Biklen said.
Correction Department and Correctional Health Services officials did not respond to requests for comment. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks, who oversees the Correction Department, also did not respond.
During his 44-year career, Uhrig has worked in public health in the U.S. and more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East on HIV prevention and care and responding to outbreaks of many other diseases.
He has worked with the World Health Organization and the United Nations. He speaks Nepali, Vietnamese and Hindi.
“He is an excellent doctor, very thorough and conscientious, with incredible experience, which makes what happened all the more appalling,” a former Rikers colleague said.
Uhrig is not the only Rikers doctor to publicly criticize Correction Department operations.
Dr. Ross MacDonald, the jail system’s chief medical officer, wrote the City Council in September 2021: “We have witnessed a collapse in basic jail operations such that today I do not believe the city is capable of safely managing.”
After that letter become public, MacDonald was not fired or publicly censured. He is now chief medical officer for NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull.
In March 2020, early in the pandemic, Rachael Bedard, a doctor and the senior director of geriatrics and complex care service for the jails, posted a tweet calling for the release of at-risk detainees at a time when that position was not backed by the de Blasio administration.
In a New Yorker piece published in October 2021, Bedard critiqued the Correction Department’s COVID-19 response. “We had guys sitting in the pens, waiting for intake, before even being seen for their COVID test,” she told the magazine.
But Bedard kept her job and left on her own terms. She was just appointed to the Board of Correction by the City Council.