Who cares?

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by Pamela White
(letters@boulderweekly.com)

How much misery do criminals deserve? Should a prison sentence involve poor medical and mental-health treatment? Should it include suicide?

These are realities facing inmates in Colorado's prisons. They may have been reality for Timothy Russell, a supermax inmate with back problems and hepatitis C who committed suicide in his cell on Oct. 17.

Russell wasn't the boy next door. He wasn't someone you'd want to invite to dinner. He was serving a 30-year sentence for assault and clearly had problems with violence.

As reported by Alan Prendergast of Westword in his Nov. 24 article, "Checking out of lockdown," Russell had filed a case in federal court last year alleging that prison staff were deliberately depriving him of medical treatment in retaliation for his having struck a nurse. The case was thrown out. But inmates who knew him say his medical needs continued to go unmet and that he hanged himself in part to escape physical pain.

The Department of Corrections (DOC), the state bureaucracy that oversees prisons, denies that Russell's suicide had anything to do with inadequate medical treatment. They say inmates are lying. Patti Micciche, DOC spokeswoman, told Westword that Russell's records have been reviewed and that his "medical and mental-health needs were being handled appropriately."

Since Ms. Micciche said it, it must be true. Except that Russell hanged himself in his cell—an act generally not in accordance with good physical or mental health.

If inmates are telling the truth, it wouldn't be the first time that our state prisons and county jails have failed to meet the medical needs of those in their custody. Pamela Clifton was in prison on a drug charge when she went into premature labor with her third child. She claims she asked guards to help her but was ridiculed and ignored. She labored through the night in her cell unattended and later gave birth to a stillborn girl.

DOC records showed that the prison had one part-time doctor to care for the needs of more than 1,000 female inmates. Further, the nurse on duty the night of Clifton's obstetric crisis didn't know how to use a fetal heart monitor, which could have revealed Clifton's baby was in distress.

DOC officials called Clifton a liar, too. Her lawsuit against them is still in federal court.

Then there's Ralph Pimentel, a Garfield County Jail inmate who claims he languished in severe pain for nearly three days before being taken to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. What did the Garfield County officials have to say about his allegation?

"He's lying," they said.

These are the medical cases that make headlines. But for every big story that involves a dead body or a lawsuit, there are dozens of smaller reports that never make the news. Like the young woman who supposedly had a grand mal seizure while guards watched and called her a hypochondriac. Like the inmate who had a migraine and spent a full day puking and moaning in her cell before nurses responded with medication. Like the DOC inmates who were upset by Russell's suicide and requested counseling—and reportedly didn't hear back from DOC staff for a week.

It's an awkward thing for our society to face the issue of medical care for inmates. As our continuing debate about the death penalty proves, many of us have little compassion for people who've murdered, raped, robbed and beaten other people. A hundred years ago, most of these criminals would have been hanged; now we feed them, clothe them, give them medical care and HBO. It's not always easy to feel good about that.

Yet, the moment someone is taken into custody, we, the taxpayers, become his caretakers. It is our responsibility to see that he is fed, clothed and given appropriate amounts of exercise, medical care and human interaction. With one of the fastest-growing prison populations in the United States, it's a responsibility Colorado doesn't always seem to take seriously. One part-time doctor for more than 1,000 women? That's absurd.

Certainly, the DOC has a hard time finding nurses and doctors willing to work in the prison environment. State salaries generally can't compete with earnings available in hospitals and private clinics, and, as Russell's poor nurse discovered, working with violent criminals comes with risks.

But perhaps the real reason it's so difficult for us to face the issue of health care in prisons is that we haven't yet resolved the issue of health care for society at large. The United States is the wealthiest, most developed nation on Earth not to have some kind of national health-care plan. Whereas other "developed" nations ration health care according to need, we ration it according to wealth. The bigger your wallet, the better your health care. As a result, there are hardworking American families who can't afford medical treatment. And, unfortunately, many Americans just don't care.

The biggest obstacle to some kind of national health-care system seems to be money. Who wants to pay more in taxes so that the loser single mom down the street can take her snot-nosed brat to the doctor for a fever? We can't expect a nation of people who don't care about the health of an innocent child to care that the thug in Cell Block C isn't getting his Prozac.

It's clear that some kind of state body—perhaps the Legislative Audit Committee—needs to probe health care in state prisons and county jails. We can't in good conscience lock people behind bars, no matter how rotten they are, and fail in our responsibility to them. But the first step to developing compassion for inmates might be learning to have compassion for our neighbors.

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