A question of necessity

The departments priorities often diverge from those of the women and men in its care. Common, debilitating ailments go unaddressed because treatment, by the prisons standards, is not medically necessary.

One inmate with a hernia that caused him daily pain could not get surgery because treating his injury was not necessary in the departments calculus. In a court declaration, he recounted crying as he tried to push the hernia back in during a visit with his wife; he worried the visit would be cut short if he called for help. Another described medical staff denying surgery to remove objects embedded in his temple even though he struggled to eat, sleep or walk, while a man who struggled to breathe after his nose was badly broken said the department refused to pay for a specialist to examine him.

In a deposition filed with U.S. District Court, a physician treating one prisoner with ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease, recounted asking to conduct a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. The doctors request was denied and, as he feared, the mans colon ruptured through his abdominal wall and nearly killed him.

This is not how you treat human beings, said Allen, who led the failed class action lawsuit in which those stories were collected.

A lot of this stuff has life or death implications, he continued. If you're not taking it seriously, if you're treating folks as other, that's going to result in unnecessary and preventable death.

If not death, then pain.

Incarcerated since 2007, Michael Sublett has served nearly all his time in grinding pain. A decades-old motorcycle injury that flared not long after he arrived at Washington Corrections Center in Shelton has left him unable to walk. A marathon 8 hour back surgery performed in 2016 left him worse off than ever, Sublett said. Spacers placed between his vertebrae attached to two, 10-inch metal rods near his spine began to painfully fail almost immediately.

I lay in bed and screamed for more than three hours before anyone came to my aid, said Sublett, describing the night seven months after surgery that the screws failed.

Its been a nightmare of pain and anguish, he continued in a 14-page handwritten letter detailing his treatment.

Sublett said he spent years begging prison medical providers to allow him to have his back examined. When the scans were ultimately conducted, Sublett said by letter, doctors at Providence St. Marys Medical Center in Walla Walla found that his spine had collapsed, and that four of 10 screws had failed.

Currently receiving bone strengthening treatment at UW Medical Center, Sublett said he expects to undergo three surgeries to correct the failed attempt to fix his back. The 61-year-old credited Dr. Sara Kariko, the departments chief medical officer, with personally intervening in his case to get him the corrective surgery he has needed for nearly four years.

In a recent interview, Kariko said there is always room for improvement within the departments medical system. But, she argued, many prison care providers see themselves as advocates for underserved and vulnerable populations and pursue the work passionately.

Sublett relies on a wheelchair, a device that prison staff can take away from him at any time. He may never walk again, he said, and faces the prospect of becoming quadriplegic in prison.

I am incarcerated to pay for crimes against society, said Sublett, who was sentenced to life without parole under Washingtons three strikes law after being convicted of murdering aThurston County man. I was not sentenced to be physically and mentally punished for over a decade with debilitating pain.

Visit link:

Health care in WA prisons leaves inmates waiting months or years for help - Crosscut