NC officials set up a free COVID-19 testing plan for state prison system employees
Starting Monday, North Carolina prison, probation and juvenile justice employees can go to a chain of urgent care centers for free COVID-19 tests, the state Department of Public Safety said.
The department announced Thursday an initiative struck with the State Health Plan, the Department of Health and Human Services, FastMed Urgent Care Centers and LabCorp, which will be processing the tests.
The department has more than 21,000 employees who are eligible for the testing. They are at higher risk for exposure to the virus because they work in prisons or detention centers or are out in communities checking on probationers. They work in more than 350 sites in all 100 counties, DPS officials said.
The tests are confidential and voluntary, DPS officials said.
“The continued health and safety of our dedicated staff are our priorities as they bravely carry out our public safety mission through this pandemic,” said Chief Deputy Secretary Tim Moose, who leads the Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice division in a news release. “We have been committed and actively engaged to offer COVID-19 tests to all of our staff within Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice.”
The plan comes after the Department of Public Safety rejected a similar one announced three weeks ago by State Treasurer Dale Folwell. He oversees the health plan.
The prison system is dealing with major outbreaks at two facilities — Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro and the N.C. Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh — and nine others have reported cases. Many who have tested positive have since recovered, state officials say, but five inmates have died of COVID-19 related causes, including three at Neuse and one at NCCIW.
Ardis Watkins, executive director for the State Employees Association of North Carolina, had been pushing for the testing since the virus began hitting the prisons. She said she appreciates that DPS has a plan in place, but did not like that it took so long and questioned whether it will be accessible for all 21,000 employees.
“If you just look up FastMed locations online, they are quite a distance from our prisons in the east, in particular, and that’s where we’ve had the biggest problem,” she said.
FastMed’s map for North Carolina does not show locations near prisons such as Pasquotank, Pamlico and Tabor in the eastern part of the state where outbreaks have happened.
Jerry Higgins, a DPS spokesman, said the plan addresses that concern.
“In areas of the state where FastMed does not have a permanent location, such as Hyde and Pasquotank counties, FastMed has committed to identify and provide a testing location in those communities,” he said.
The division, “in consultation with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, will add additional testing resources,” he said.
Watkins said Folwell’s plan involved a lab company, Mako Medical of Raleigh, visiting prisons to take samples it would then process. Prison officials had said they objected to onsite testing.
The News & Observer obtained correspondence through a public records request that shows Mako offered a price of $80 to $83 per test depending on whether the company had to collect it, but no price had been agreed upon. Mako had committed to making more than 20,000 tests available.
Higgins said the department did not know how much tests would cost under its plan. He said DPS did not negotiate a price; LabCorp and FastMed will be billing the State Health Plan.
The health plan has been covering costs for testing and screening visits for all state employees for several weeks.
This story was originally published May 14, 2020 at 6:58 PM.