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| Arizona prisons can be deadly for sick |
| By tucsoncitizen.com - Bob Ortega |
| Published: 06/05/2012 |
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For two years, Ferdinand Dix repeatedly filed requests with Arizona’s Tucson state prison staff, asking to be examined for a chronic cough, shortness of breath and loss of appetite. When Dix, who was serving five years on forgery and drug charges, finally received a checkup, the doctor didn’t notice cancer had caused his liver to swell to four times its normal size. He told Dix to drink energy shakes. It wasn’t until he was “nonresponsive” and had been transported to an outside hospital that Dix was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer. He died a few days later, on Feb. 11. He was 47. Dix’s case is cited in a federal lawsuit accusing the Arizona Department of Corrections of medical neglect. It’s a charge the system has faced before, from activists, inmates’ families and at least one Arizona lawmaker. Citing the litigation, Corrections officials declined to discuss Dix’s care. A review by The Arizona Republic of deaths in state prisons over the past two fiscal years found at least four inmates, in addition to Dix, whose medical care was delayed or potentially inadequate leading up to their deaths. The records of these cases, together with interviews of officers, medical staff and inmates point to a system in which correctional officers routinely deny inmates access to timely care, and in which treatment sometimes falls short of accepted standards. These deaths are among dozens of examples of preventable deaths uncovered in a broad investigation by The Republic into high rates of suicide, homicide and accidental deaths in state prisons. Corrections Director Charles Ryan denies that health care in Arizona’s prisons is inadequate or that there is an institutional indifference toward ailing inmates. But Corrections officials do acknowledge that a long-planned privatization of prison medical care has made it difficult to fill vacancies. They also say care has been hobbled for more than a year by cuts to outside contractor payments, which state lawmakers imposed two years ago. Allegations of substandard care, however, predate those developments. For example, the suit in which Dix is named — filed in March by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Prison Law Office of San Quentin, Calif., — lists dozens of allegations of inmates waiting months for medicine or medical treatment, and suffering permanent damage and disfigurement as a result. Read More. |
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