(Radio Iowa) – Dozens of health care workers gathered along the Mississippi River in Fort Madison Wednesday to protest the state’s request for private companies to take over health care in its prisons. Todd Copley is the local president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.  “The state and its political majority have chosen to honor the hard work and dedication of the medical staff by valuing profit and greed over its employees by calling it reform,” he says. Copley says the label doesn’t fit what’s happening.

“This isn’t reform. It’s reckless and the state employees across this state deserve better,” Copley says. The Department request says roughly 300 employees care for the inmates in Iowa’s nine prisons. Between 60 and 70 percent of inmates require ongoing medical treatment. Iowa Federation of Labor president Charlie Wishman says Iowa doesn’t need another fail privatization scheme. “Iowa needs safe, accountable, public health care in its prisons done by trained, well-paid people with benefits, with a pension; people who want to be there doing the job, who are good at it.”

The Iowa Department of Corrections filed the proposal, saying it faces staffing shortages and rising pharmaceutical costs.