PERSPECTIVE ON INCARCERATION:
Medical Neglect, Abuse Lie in Wait for State's Women Prisoners
by Ellen Barry,
Los Angeles Times,
October 27, 1998
:
"A systematic failure to provide treatment endangers, dehumanizes and in
some cases kills inmates."
The spotlight now on widespread sexual abuse of women by guards and staff
in California's women's prisons is long overdue. The Department of
Corrections has managed to contain exposure of sexual exploitation for
years, despite repeated attempts to bring it to light.
Still hidden from the headlines, however, is the lifethreatening and
widespread medical neglect and abuse in those same prisons. More than 11,000
women prisoners are subjected to seriously deficient medical care every day.
A few examples illustrate the depth of the problem.
In the spring of 1997, Mia Doiron entered the Central California Women's
Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla to serve a oneyear sentence for drug possession.
By Feb.20, 1999, she was dead. What happened to her is a tragically common
story of medical neglect and gross malfeasance in California's women's
facilities that compound the already glaring
deficiencies of our state's correctional system.
Doiron first requested medical attention in September 1997 for severe pain
in her leg. She did not obtain the correct diagnosis of bone cancer for
another five months. Had she been diagnosed and treated properly in the
early stages of her illness, her survival rate was estimated by a medical
report to be about 90%. By the time she left prison, however, and was able
to seek treatment on
her own, her cancer was so aggressive that her chances for survival were
just 10%. Doctors amputated Doiron's leg to try to save her life, but it was
too late.
Her short prison term for drug possession had turned into a death sentence.
Tina Balagno was sentenced to four years in prison on drug charges in June
1998. While in custody at CCWF, she discovered breast lumps and was
diagnosed with breast cancer. As with Doiron's case, a series of delays in
medical care resulted in receiving no treatment for five months, when
Balagno finally had a mastectomy.
But it was too late for her as well. The cancer had metastasized to her
bones, leaving her in excruciating pain. While in the prison system's
Skilled Nursing Facility, Tina was never given sufficient pain medication to
keep her comfortable. She received nb assistance with eating or bathing,
even though she was too ill to move. In February 1990, she was granted
"compassionate release." She died one week later.
These cases are not isolated incidents but indiciations of a penal system
in severe crisis. As an advocate for women prisoners for almost 25 years, I
have interviewed thousands of incarcerated
women, and their stories paint a consistent picture of systematic medical
neglect that would horrify the average citizen if he or she knew that it
were happening in the "free world."
Medical neglect, as much as physical and sexual abuse, endangers,
dehumanizes and in some cases kills prisoners who are thoroughly dependent
upon that system for medical care. Yet California's Department of
Corrections has shown itself unwilling or unable to effect the kinds of
changes that would bring the system up to the most basic standards of health
care for prisoners
established by both the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law.
But it's not just a question of neglect. As the cases of Balagno and Doiron
show, there is active harm done to women denied medically necessary
treatment-a harm that is often totally preventable.
Gloria Johnson, a 45yearold grandmother, recently was released from CCWF.
She has multiple sclerosis, and while under the care of prison doctors, lost
the use of both arms and legs.
Housed In the Skilled Nursing Facility, a facility condemned by our own
California Department of Health Services for its failure "to treat each
patient as an individual with dignity and respect,"
Johnson was denied assistance with her food and personal hygiene. She
described needing to "eat my food like a dog when it was put in front of
me." Staff left her to lie in menstrual blood
for up to eight hours at a time.
So much for the Hippocratic Oath, which reads in part, "to help the sick,
and abstain from ... abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free."
Within the last two years, health care in California's women's prisons has
been condemned by the United Nations and two international human rights
agencies, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. It is abundantly
clear that the Department of Corrections needs even more pressure from the
outside to put its house in order. I welcome the call by State Sen. Richard
Polanco
(DLos Angeles) for legislative hearings, into conditions inside California's
women's facilities.
Only by bringing the truth to light can we as a society be moved to
encourage basic standards of medical treatment for women prisoners, and
close this shameful chapter of California's history.
--------------------------
Ellen Barry is founding director of Legal Services for Prisoners with
Children and a 1998 recipient of the MacArthur award for her advocacy for
women in prison.
Comments to jnr@insightweb.com
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