Show I Medical care questioned at Ely State Prison Ashley Powers Henry Weinstein Los Angeles s Times When Nevada death row inmate Charles Randolph asked for a specific medicine to address his heart condition earlier this year Max Carter the prisons prison's physician assistant sent a curt reply The medication was the wrong kind and potentially lethal but he would be happy to prescribe it so that your chances of expiring sooner are increased When another prisoner John O. O Snow asked for pills in July to ease the pain from his deteriorating joints Carters Carter's denial came with another stinging missive stating that he was sonna gonna let you suffer To many prison observers Carters Carter's responses exemplify the indifference custody officials at Ely State Prison have for sick prisoners There has been no staff doctor to handle the medical needs of any the 1000 inmates here for more than 18 months Carter is the ranking highest-ranking medical worker at the mens men's prison the last staff doctor was a gynecologist According to interviews and records obtained by the Los Angeles Times prisoners at Ely have been denied care for heart problems diabetes and other serious medical conditions Earlier this year a nurse was fired after complaining about substandard care at the facility which she said led to one inmate needlessly dying of gangrene Attorneys for some Ely inmates say they believe the lack of medical care has played a role in a high percentage of death row inmates giving up and volunteering to be executed Allbut All Allbut Allbut but two of 12 inmates executed in inthe inthe inthe the state in the past 30 years have been volunteers No other state has had close to that percentage of volunteers records show Recently the American Civil Liberties Unions Union's National Prison Project has taken up the cause at Ely meeting with corrections officials and pressing for reforms to improve inmate care A doctor working with the ACLU who was granted access to 35 inmates and their medical records in October has come to a stark conclusion The medical care provided at Ely State Prison amounts to the grossest possible medical malpractice and the the most shocking and callous disregard for human life and human suffering that I have ever encountered in my 35 years of practice Dr William Villiam K Noel said in a report sent Wednesday to Howard the director of the Nevada Department of Corrections It is highly Unlikely that these 35 cases are aberrations Noel wrote These cases show a system that is so broken and dysfunctional Questioned Continued on AS Medical care Questioned Continued from Al that in my opinion everyone every everyone everyone one of the prisoners at Ely who has serious medical needs or who may develop serious medical needs is at enormous risk said Wednesday he had not seen Noels Noel's report and could not comment on any specific allegations However he added I do know that I have recently been informed through some other auditing that the access to medical care and the quality of care provided by the department meets or exceeds community standards An Any attorney who represents the department tr s laSE d e o c l not comment as did an assistant to the prison warden EK McDaniel Max Carter did not respond to messages left for him at the prisons prison's medical department Dr Steven MacArthur the theo o obstetrician gynecologist bs an I 0 gi st st. who was the prisons prison's last staff doctor said it was difficult to treat inmates with severe psychological was problems one man convinced the facility was vibrating ib ti g and d who cursed and spat at staff Some prisoners refused to visit the infirmary simply because they couldn't smoke there he said Nonetheless he said they were well cared for Most inmates age in dog years They beat the hell out of themselves he lie said They have lots of aches and pains In his report Noel said he found instances of prisoners being denied medical attention despite suffering from seizures syphilis lis deep vein thrombosis and rheumatoid arthritis He acknowledged that many Ely prisoners have committed horrible crimes but said physicians take an oath to make no judgments as to character or morality when treating a patient Under a 1976 Supreme Court decision based on the Eighth Amendments Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment government officials are obliged to Uto provide medical care for those whom it is punishing by incarceration In a letter accompanying Noels Noel's report ACLU CLU and attorneys Amy my Fettig Margaret Winter asked the director of corrections to with Gov set up a meeting t 4 James Gibbons because the medical crisis at the prison goes far beyond the lack of a doctor and it seems unrealistic to expect the department to summon the resources to resolve the problems without the assistance of the governor and the legislature The facility which opened in 1989 is more than miles from the states state's population and power centers Reno Las Vegas and capital Carson City where executions take place It handles the to day-to-day medical needs of prisoners but if inmates experience serious ailments they are sent to a a local hospital threatening life-threatening cases such as stabbing victims are airlifted to a larger city The prisons prison's desolation a source source of frustration tion to inmate families and defense attorneys is part of its appeal to the person town said Mayor Jon Hickman The facility about a dozen miles outside its namesakes namesake's downtown is easy to ignore It also provides a city whose economy is tied to the mining industry with hundreds of secure jobs In this setting inmate advocates say corrections officials have denied prisoners needed antibiotics pain pills and surgeries with little outcry there are no local groups to do so When a nurse who had worked at the prison for nearly a decade spoke out she was forced to scrub the infirmary floor with a toothbrush according to court papers That nurse Lorraine Memory said in an interview that the prisons prison's dozen or orso orso orso so medical staffers lacked equipment such as an IV pump and a blood pressure monitoring machine which are particularly helpful during a medical trauma Little training is provided to staff some of whom struggle to start an IV or use a defibrillator said Memory who eventually was fired Jewel Jacques s a nurse who has worked at Ely since since 1993 and two other prison staffers have signed declarations b backing Memory's account of prison conditions Most of pain are arc given only a handful of Tylenol a week Jacques said Relatives of some inmates say prisoners with minor ailments often avoid the infirmary convinced that Elys Ely's medical staff will either ignore or harm hann them Some inmates have been chastised for seeking medical attention records show I think Nevada has the mentality of lock lockem lockem lockern em ern up and throw throwaway away the key said Charisma Boyer whose husband Allen is imprisoned in Ely for performing sexual acts on a year old girl Its another empty bed if someone dies Inmate Snow who is ison ison ison on death row TOW for the 1983 contract killing of a Las Vegas nightclub owner has no cartilage in his hips but was given no painkillers to cope with bones that scrape against one another Noels Noel's report said Instead the prisoner was prescribed whose side effects are so severe that the medication is mainly used on horses At Noels Noel's suggestion Dr Robert Bannister medical director of the state corrections department changed Snows Snow's medication But the doctor is still balking at allowing Snow to have hip surgery Noel wrote Without it the inmate eventually will be unable to move Noel said Bannister did not return calls seeking comment In a complaint to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Memory alleged that two diabetic prisoners were denied denie insulin because MacArthur wanted to hasten the demise of these two inmates in order to save money or cause them more pain and suffering MacArthur denied the allegations One of the diabetics Patrick Cavanaugh likely suffered from dementia after three years without insulin according to Noels Noel's report Cavanaugh eventually believed he was living in ina a big city ap apartment not in the Ely State Prison infirmary Memory said in inan inan inan an interview Cavanaugh a former fonner manager forthe rock group The Coasters was on death deathrow deathrow deathrow row for shooting to death one of the groups group's singers mutilating his body and dumping it in a canyon In prison Cavanaugh developed gangrene Memory wrote and his toes and feet turned black and this gradually progressed up the legs until it had turned into a stinking rotting oozing mess of dead flesh which had reached clear up the level of his knees Cavanaugh's medical records however described his condition as which Noel said was akin to calling 9 11 a rise high-rise fire MacArthur said Cavanaugh refused oxygen oxygen and was never denied insulin If he was not given it it was because Cavanaugh declined it the doctor said Cavanaugh died in April 2006 his death certificate was signed by a doctor in Carson City who had not seen seen the body and lists natural causes as the reason A month later state officials fired MacArthur but not because nurses and other prison employees charged that he provided poor or negligent care Rather corrections officials said it was because MacArthur refused to give up his time full-time job at the the local hospital though there was no evidence that it caused him to neglect his prison duties In an interview this week MacArthur said he was proud of care he provided to prisoners but acknowledged that there were limits on what the medical staff would treat We didn't cater to every rash and boo-boo boo that you'd run to your mommy and get kissed he said |