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Transition Clinic's Nadine Horton and Lisa Puglisi at WNHH FM.
Lisa Puglisi and Nadine Horton are helping ex-offenders reintegrate into society by tackling one of the least-discussed challenges.
They’re looking for Connecticut to discuss that challenge more — and send more helpers.
Puglisi directs the New Haven Transitions Clinic, which focuses on health care for people released from prison and is based at the Cornell Scott-Hill Health primary care center at 150 Sargent Dr. Horton is a research assistant at the clinic, which in addition to connecting returnees to care studies their cases to learn how to do the job better.
The center has one full-time community health worker assigned to all of New Haven — where an estimated 900 ex-offenders are released each year.
The Transitions crew is backing this proposal aimed at directing the state to set aside Medicaid dollars to train and hire 40 formerly incarcerated people to serve as community health workers dealing with the estimated 10,000 ex-offenders returning home annually statewide. (Click here to read more about the state bill and recent legislative testimony.)
The proposed plan would cost less than $5 million a year, and pay for itself more than two times over in saved health care and criminal justice costs, Puglisi said during an interview on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
The “vast majority” of ex-offenders wrestle with chronic illnesses ranging from heart disease and asthma and hypertension and obesity to substance abuse disorder, according to Transitions. The state’s prison population is 43 percent Black, 25 percent Latino.
Click on the play arrow to watch the full conversation on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” with Nadine Horton and Lisa Puglisi about their clinic’s work and broader prison reentry health issues. Click here to subscribe to“Dateline New Haven” and here to subscribe to other WNHH FM podcasts.
How do we know these folks are ex-offenders? If they still engage in substance abuse, isn't there a high probability they will continue to offend? What criminal justice costs does Pugilists think will be saved if her program is funded? If these folks were definitely ex-offenders, why would they be involved with he criminal justice system, with or without her program. Bottom line, the term "ex-offender" strikes me as optimistic and misleading. "released offender" would be more accurate.