[Pnews] Deplorable health conditions in CA Women's Prisons

[Prisoner News]

*http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/women-decry-deplorable-conditions-in-state-prison/Content?oid=3868191*

*Women Decry Deplorable Conditions in State Prison *

*Former inmates at the Central California Women's Facility say they were 
denied health care and diagnosed with diseases they don't have. A recent 
report backs up their claims.*

/By Andrea Abi-Karam 
<http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/ArticleArchives?author=3868190> /

When Theresa Martinez was an inmate at the Central California Women's 
Facility, prison health officials diagnosed her as having HIV. Martinez 
said her mental health deteriorated as a result. Prison doctors also put 
her on a rigorous anti-HIV drug regimen for ten years. Eventually, 
officials with the California Department of Corrections and 
Rehabilitation transferred her to a state prison facility in Southern 
California.

Once there, the facility's health staffers urged Martinez to take 
another HIV test, even though she had assured them that she was infected 
with the virus. The results came back negative. They did the test again. 
It was negative, again. She didn't have HIV.

Martinez said she later learned that the Central California Women's 
Facility, where she and many other East Bay women end up when they're 
sentenced to prison, had a contract with a pharmaceutical company that 
sells HIV medication. Martinez, who now works for the Oakland-based 
prisoners' rights group Justice Now, shared the story of what happened 
to her at a recent public event. She contends that corporate-driven 
interests affect the physical and mental health of prisoners throughout 
the California prison system.

There's also compelling evidence that the health facility within the 
Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla has a history 
of badly mistreating female prisoners. Late last year, a three-person 
panel of court-appointed medical experts released a scathing report on 
the deplorable conditions inside the prison. Overall, the panel found 
that CCWF "is not providing adequate medical care, and that there are 
systemic issues resulting in preventable morbidity and mortality 
[disease and death] that present an ongoing serious risk of harm to 
patients."

The 57-page report, which didn't receive much press coverage, also 
stated that CCWF's health facility is disorganized and overcrowded. "We 
believe that the majority of problems are attributable to overcrowding, 
insufficient health care staffing and inadequate medical bed space," the 
report stated.

The court-ordered health care evaluation came in response to a January 
2013 report conducted by Governor Jerry Brown's office that declared the 
health care conditions at CCWF improved. The dismal quality of health 
care inside California's prisons was the driving force behind orders 
issued by federal judges to the state to dramatically reduce its inmate 
population. "Overcrowding and health care conditions cited by this Court 
to support its population reduction order are now a distant memory," 
Brown's office stated.

Despite the scathing report on CCWF by court-appointed medical experts, 
federal judges agreed last month to give Brown and state corrections 
officials more time to relieve overcrowding in California's prisons.

The overcrowded conditions at CCWF worsened in 2012 when the state 
converted Valley State Prison for Women (which is located near CCWF) 
into a men's facility and then funneled that facility's female prisoners 
into CCWF and the California Institution for Women near Chino. CCWF's 
inmate population quickly grew to 184 percent of capacity.

According to the court-appointed medical experts, the packed conditions 
at CCWF resulted in health care staff being slow to respond to inmates' 
medical needs.

"I would assume that during an emergency you would run toward the 
emergency, but no, 95 percent of the time they walk --- stroll," said 
Mianta McKnight, a former Brisbane resident who was released from CCWF 
three months ago and currently resides at a prisoner re-entry facility 
on Treasure Island.

McKnight told me that when nurses at CCWF respond to an emergency, 
they'll only provide care if the patient is incoherent and can't stand 
up. She described an instance in which her roommate was waiting to get 
treatment for an earache. The pain became so intense, she passed out and 
hit her head on her bunk. "She was trying to be seen and was ignored," 
McKnight said.

And even if a prisoner does get seen by health care staffers at CCWF, 
there's a good chance she won't get appropriate care. According to the 
court-ordered report, as well as first-hand accounts, CCWF medical 
staffers routinely prescribe expired, incorrect, or insufficient medication.

"You go in and say, 'I don't feel well because XYZ,'" McKnight said. 
"They'll give you a cold pack and you may have a migraine."

Inmates also "were given the wrong medications at times --- kind of like 
test this and see if it works and if it doesn't work we'll try something 
else," she continued. She said she once helped take care of a fellow 
inmate who became paralyzed down the left side of her body because she 
received the wrong drugs.

McKnight also said that it was not uncommon for prisoners to wait in the 
pharmacy line for long periods and then watch staffers withhold their 
prescribed medications. They'd get to the front of the line, and then 
watch staffers pull up their mugshots and arrest histories on Google, 
and send the prisoners to the back of the line if the staffers disliked 
what they saw, she said.

At CCWF, prisoners with chronic illnesses and disabilities are consigned 
to the skilled nursing facility, which further isolates them within the 
prison system, and further alienates them from their families. "They are 
sometimes thrown back there and don't know why they're back there," said 
McKnight of inmates being put in skilled nursing. "They have little or 
no communication with their families." Prison officials also regularly 
lock down the skilled nursing facility without explanation, she said.

The court-appointed medical experts who examined CCWF substantiated 
McKnight's experiences. The panelist said they "found problems with 
timeliness and quality of care." They also stated in their report that 
"[i]nternal audits show lapses in continuity of chronic disease 
medication. We also found concerns related to expiration of chronic 
medication orders."

McKnight, who now works with the prisoner's rights group California 
Coalition for Women Prisoners, said that the health care staffers at 
CCWF don't treat patients as humans. "I would like to see people have 
the opportunity to have a better quality of life," she said. "And not 
have them have a slow death sentence as a result of not being taken care 
of."

The California Coalition for Women Prisoners is working on a campaign 
that calls for health care staff to be held accountable; health care to 
be improved to the standards of care outside of prison; and prisoner 
release in lieu of overcrowding.

"It's corrections, but it's not meant to be cruel and unusual 
punishment," McKnight said. "And sometimes that's what it turns into."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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