Poor Medical Care in Bureau of Prisons Inefficient, Costly,
and Deadly
By Derek Gilna
No one who is familiar with the
sorry state of medical care in the BOP should
be surprised that the U.S. BOP , when the Ebola crisis
arose, there was no one in charge, there had been limited or no training of people responsible
for treating it, no accountability for obvious failures of planning and
treatment, and more time spent on covering up the problem instead of actually
finding a solution. At the moment, America
Unfortunately,
for confined prisoners in the BOP , as well
as numerous state and county correctional institutions, the horror of poor
medical care continues. Instances of
serious and preventable suffering, illness, injury, and death are common in
every institution. It is evident from an
objective analysis of the BOP medical system
that the mission of the agency is to give the minimal amount of care necessary
to avoid being sued, without regard for the long term consequences of the
health of the prisoner.
How many
times will the BOP prescribe Tylenol and a
few days off, for dizzy spells, loss of consciousness, and complaints that
indicate the prisoner has serious medical problems that need a proper
diagnosis? How long with people who were
diagnosed with cancer before they even entered the system be denied
treatment? How long will the BOP
continue to deny compassionate release to aged and infirm prisoners who could
no re-offend even if they desired to do so?
The
solution is relatively simple. The BOP
must fast-track the release of its elderly prisoners, and must also facilitate
the placement of them and other eligible prisoners into the Medicaid system. (This
is already happening on the state level.) They must reform the current release
and re-entry system to find these people a place to live. They must stop wasting money confining people
who have terminal medical conditions that they clearly resent having to treat.
The BOP
won’t do this because it is obvious or the right thing to do. After all, as long as Congress keeps giving
them money to spend on poorly managed medical care, they will continue to waste
it. No, you will have to stand up for yourself, and have the help of someone
that understands the system, who has been down this road before, someone who
has actually completed a compassionate release, someone who has sued or
researched and facilitated lawsuits against the federal government for not
years, but decades. To get their attention, you will have to sue. Nothing will happen until you take action.
