Medical negligence leads to finger loss
Greetings to all who support what is right! My story goes like this: I recently noticed a friend of mine with a very large bump on his hand due to a brown recluse spider bite. I asked him, “what happened?” He told me that he filled out an emergency medical request form and informed medical staff of the type of spider and its location.
Well, no one responded to even look at it until 19 days had passed. I asked him if they were going to treat it and he said, “yes, they did.” They had given him a couple band-aids and a small packet of ointment. Well, this morning I saw him again. They had to amputate 3 of his fingers because the poison from the spider bite had caused severe damage over such a prolonged period of time. However, if they would have responded sooner, then he wouldn’t have lost his fingers.
A law came out some time ago called “The Plata Case” which entitles all inmates in CDCR to fair and prompt medical attention, as well as other medical treatments. For the most part, the staff are still negligent, and when they are confronted with that particular issue they say “due to budget cutbacks, we are short of staff!” They cling on to any reason to blame the budget so their job income can be more. A lot can be done to save my friend’s fingers, but when I see the attitudes of the medical staff and the way they treat the inmates in a non-professional manner, it’s obvious they are unloading their aggressions and animosities on the inmates needing medical attention.
MIM(Prisons) adds: Plata v. Schwarzenegger, docket no. 3:01-cv-01351-TEH (N.D. Cal.), is a federal class action civil rights lawsuit alleging that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) medical services are inadequate and violate the Eighth Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This case was filed in 2001 and as of early 2010 the state is still resisting as a federal receivership has recently taken over the CDCR’s medical care. MIM(Prisons) promotes long legal battles that are strategically chosen to create space for the oppressed to organize and to expose the system. Almost nine years of court and prisoners of the state are still losing fingers and worse unnecessarily. Now that the system is exposed, the other side of our struggle is building the independent institutions of the oppressed that demonstrate better ways to do things.
