title:  22-Year-Old Inmate Dies After Being Punished For ‘Faking Illness’ In FLA Jail (VIDEO)
text: Max Gracia, a 22-year-old resident of Orlando, Florida, was found dead in an Orange County jail cell on the morning of August 11, 2015. Autopsy results show that Gracia died of sepsis, after wounds from a police canine bite became infected.As WESH reports here, documents released following an internal police investigation show that Gracia was checked into the jail infirmary following his arrest. He was then discharged without ever being evaluated or treated.Records obtained by WESH show that on the night before his death Gracia was so sick that he could not get out of his bed.The documents show that:When jail officers told Gracia to get out of his bed, he  slowly went to the floor and lied on his back saying that he could not move anymore. Instead of offering medical attention, a jail nurse, who later resigned, wrote that the 22-year-old  was faking or exaggerating his medical condition and inability to get up. The nurse interpreted his illness as an  implicit refusal for medication. Gracia was then disciplined by jail officials, who charged him with refusal to follow orders and  feigning an illness. He died in his cell hours later.Here s more on this story from Fox 11:In 2013, the state of Florida privatized healthcare services for inmates. Since that time the number of inmate deaths has steadily increased.Up until May 31, 2016, Corizon, a private corporation which provides healthcare to inmates in a number of states, was responsible for inmate care in Florida.After thousands of inmate complaints and hundreds of unexplained inmate deaths, the company decided to terminate its $1.1 billion contract with the state two years early.As the Miami Herald reports here:Audits conducted by the state s Correctional Medical Authority found problems with inadequate medical care, nursing and staffing shortages, and hundreds of pending lawsuits against the state and the healthcare companies claiming inadequate care.An analysis published by the Miami Herald in November showed that in 2014 alone  346 inmates died in Florida prisons   176 of them listed with no immediate cause of death. It was the highest number on record. The increase in the number of inmate deaths occurred even as the number of inmates in Florida prisons declined.As of June 1, Centurion, another private corporation, will take over inmate care in the state.As the Miami Herald reports:The company s lead lobbyist is former House Speaker Dean Cannon, and its parent company, Centene Health, is a primary provider of managed Medicaid services in Florida   doing business as Sunshine Health   and one of the largest contributors to legislative political committees in the state. Centene gave $298,000 to legislative campaigns and political committees in 2015 alone.