Southern New Mexico prison nurse claims she was fired over staffing complaints

Apr. 9—A former nurse at a state prison near Las Cruces has filed a lawsuit against the New Mexico Corrections Department and inmate medical care provider Wexford Health Sources, alleging she was fired for speaking out about dangerously low staffing levels and lack of training.

Tracie Egan says in a complaint filed April 1 in state District Court she was hired as the health services administrator at Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility. Because the prison was short 16 nurses, she alleges, she was tasked with the duties of nearly a dozen positions, including director of nursing, pharmacy nurse, sick call nurse and intake nurse.

The complaint says she was asked to take on the extra duties "despite her lack of training in each position and the physical impossibility of fulfilling all these roles by one person."

She worked 19 hours straight on multiple occasions, "trying her best to take on the expansive duties she was given," her complaint states. She asked for assistance numerous times, telling higher-ups she was "drowning" in the work, she alleges, but her pleas met with false allegations and retaliation.

Egan's lawsuit — which seeks an unspecified amount of damages — says at times, only three nurses were scheduled to provide sick calls, medical care, emergency care and medication distribution to about 800 inmates.

On the graveyard shift, her lawsuit says, she was sometimes the only nurse on duty.

Wexford and the Corrections Department both declined to comment on the litigation.

The department awarded Wexford a four-year, $246 million inmate medical contract in 2019 after ending a contract with the company in 2007 over concerns about the quality of care it delivered to inmates.

Corrections spokeswoman Brittany Roembach wrote in an email Tuesday the department recently extended Wexford's contract through November.

The department paid the company $61.4 million to provide health care to inmates in the last fiscal year, Roembach wrote.

The state's contract with Wexford requires the company to credit the state when staffing levels fall below set levels. Wexford credited the state $3.1 million for staffing shortages in the last fiscal year, Roembach said.

Wexford faced more than 50 lawsuits from New Mexico inmates when it held the contract between 2004 and 2007, according to previous reports. The company has been named a defendant in about 90 lawsuits since 2019, online court records show, most filed by prisoners alleging inadequate health care.

Four corrections officers at Central New Mexico Correctional Facility in Las Lunas also named Wexford in a lawsuit. The officers filed a suit in September against the Corrections Department alleging staffing levels at the prison — including among medical personnel — were so low the situation put everyone in and around the prison at risk.

Plaintiffs in that case say nurses there were understaffed and overburdened, "causing many to leave and others to work under extreme stress."

"Wexford's medical care for inmates is severely deficient causing conflict between correctional officers and inmates who blame the correctional officers for the lack of care," the September complaint states.