Free coronavirus testing program for NC prison workers extended

The state prison system will extend a free coronavirus testing program for employees through July 31, Commissioner of Prisons Todd Ishee said Thursday.

2020-05-28

The tests have been available at FastMed urgent care clinics since May 18 as part of a program that was slated to run two weeks. Ishee said the Department of Public Safety is extending that another two months.

The program is voluntary. More than 21,000 department employees are eligible, and about 1,450 have taken a test in the 10 days since it started.

Seven tested positive, according to numbers DPS puts online.

A hotline set up to schedule testing appointments and answer questions has logged more than 7,000 calls, Ishee said.

The department has faced criticism for its testing policies, including from the State Employees Association of North Carolina, which lobbies on behalf of state employees.

The association pushed for an on-site mass testing program for prison employees, but those plans were scrapped in early May.

The system did mass testing in the parking lot at Neuse Correctional Institution, by far the site of its largest outbreak in the state prison system. After that, Ishee said, leadership wanted tests done "in more of a clinical environment."

"Our staff, they have a very, very tough job," he said. "In exchange for that, they deserve our best – the best that we can provide for them."

Ishee said the extended program "is superior to the one- or two-day shot that you have in the parking lot at a prison."

SEANC has criticized the program because it requires employees to drive to testing sites, which can take time in rural parts of the state. Executive Director Ardis Watkins dismissed privacy concerns Ishee has offered against parking lot tests, saying the department could address those if it wanted to.

She noted that the department announced Tuesday its plans to increase the number of prisoner transfers, which DPS said it cut to a minimum starting April 7, to make way for a gradual return to transfers from county jails. The department has had a moratorium on accepting prisoners from local jails, but that will be phased back in as state courts reopen, the department said Tuesday.

"How limited can (transfers) be and still be effective to contain a virus?" Watkins asked. "None of their actions indicate that the department is serious about employee safety."