Our View: State’s ‘fix’ burdened children needing glasses

The focal point of a government program in which children from low-income families get eyeglasses should be on the delivery of the product. The state has found a low-cost way to make those glasses via prison labor, but a recent backlog has called that arrangement into question.

Thousands of children have had to wait months for their glasses because administrative changes have stalled necessary paperwork. Some kids have been without corrected vision the entire school year.

New security guidelines were imposed at the state-run lab at Airway Heights Correctional Center, where lenses and frames are made for Medicaid-enrolled clients.

A program administrator and prison officials decided it was too risky to continue to allow inmates to input patient data, even though names and identifying information were removed from paperwork. Perhaps that’s a legitimate concern or an overreaction, but changing the system before replacement workers were ready to step in was a mistake.

The backlog grew when temporary workers took over in June. The prisoners themselves are not to blame.

Optometrists from around the state have been filing complaints because the prison program has consistently failed to meet the 10-day turnaround requirement in the state contract. Jim Parker, general manager of Correctional Industries, acknowledges the problem and the cause, noting that trained replacements weren’t ready until mid-October. Since then, he says, the backlog has been reduced from 12,000 pairs of glasses to 1,800.

That’s good news, but it’s troubling that the delays persisted for so long. If another problem arises, we would hope the lab would act more quickly to inform optometrists and state officials.

The state Department of Social and Health Services must keep the heat on the prison lab to catch up and then keep pace. The state lowers its costs by using the prison program, which not only saves taxpayers money but gives prisoners skills that improve their chances of success on the outside. But those benefits shouldn’t come at the expense of children who struggle at school because they don’t have appropriate glasses.

Optometrist David Hays, a liaison with the Optometric Physicians of Washington, told The Spokesman-Review, “My feeling is that in January, if the problem isn’t solved, DSHS will simply have to find another provider.”

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.