Medical Negligence in Federal Prisons

I’m writing to you about what I just read in Under Lock & Key 46 in the article Death Due to Medical Negligence. I’m a Federal prisoner and in the last year about 10 prisoners have had deaths due to medical negligence. One of them died on February 24, 2015. I wrote to the National Disability Rights network they sent me to Equip for Equality and they sent me a list of legal attorneys to write. I also wrote Human Rights office, the Attorney General of the State of Illinois and the U.S. Attorney General.

I’ve expressed my grievance to multiple members of the medical staff at FCI Pekin including Rn. Schimdt, Dr. Moats and the AHSA Johnson all to no avail. And not once did any of them review my medical file to verify that my feet and toes are deformed under the program statement 6031.04-C Medical Footwear. I have both hammer toes and diabetic feed, and have chronic pain so I need medical footwear for diabetic with hammer toes, custom shoes. I should have them by now to stop the pain. I’ve seen a foot doctor specialist who recommended I wear my gym shoes all the time and the arch supports are needed to prevent pain and swelling of my feet and toes. The head doctor ordered them but the FBOP stopped the order to save money and wrote that it’s ok for me to wear boots. The podiatrist has been asked to be seen to put a stop to the pain and suffering. I’ve talked to the Warden directly and all the staff at medical about this. I’ve been forced to bring my grievance to the regional office in hopes of putting a stop to this cruel and unusual punishment I’m experiencing due to Dr. Moats and all the medical staff under him here at FCI Pekin. But at the regional office I’ve seen that it too is inadequate because they only look for ways to stop your grievance from going forward. I’ve been put in the SHU to stop my filing. Every time I go to sick call about this I’m told by the nurse that nothing can be done. I was told to wear extra socks for padding, consider purchasing gel insoles from commissary, and perform exercises to reduce discomfort.

Two men on my unit have died due to the medical negligence. One was being given the wrong meds! So there is malpractice in many forms.