The horrendous medical deprivation of Mumia Abu Jamal that
has led to the severe degradation of his physical health and placed him in a
potentially life threatening situation shows that the state of Pennsylvania and
its prison apparatus is hell bent on carrying out the execution of Mumia it was
denied due to the political and legal challenges of the very flawed trial and penalty
phase that sentenced him to death – a sentence that was overturned some years
ago. For more information:
The idea that the state of Pennsylvania would attempt to
murder Mumia Abu Jamal, an internationally known and supported political prisoner
with 1000s of supporters in the USA and around the world should demonstrate to
us the arrogance and lack of concern that prison authorities have for the rule
of law and respect for human rights. For
if Pennsylvania would attempt a hit – through the act of medical denial and
neglect - on such a high profile political prisoner, consider the prevalence of
such action by corrections authorities and corrections officers on the hundreds
of thousands of prisoners whose names are not so well known around the US and
world!
At a recent event sponsored by our organization Decarcerate
the Garden State, a member was in attendance and she shared information about
the treatment of a family member incarcerated at a NJ juvenile facility. For the purposes of this article, the
identity of the person will not be revealed.
Permission was granted to write about the situation.
This organization member spoke up at our event and she
stated that there were several announcements one day at the facility, according
to her relative, about the water. They
first announced that it should not be drunk, then that it should be and then
again that it could not be drunk. There
was no explanation as to what the exact issue was with the water. Shortly there after this incarcerated person
became very ill. The following is a
written account of the challenges that this person had getting care and the
resulting medical situation from the delays and denial of care. Whether or not it was linked to the water,
the delays certainly compounded the condition.
This is just one example – no doubt there are 1000s of such
experiences, some less severe and some more severe, in NJ alone. The following account is taken from the written account of this
incarcerated person but exact dates and exact details withheld to protect his identity:
The first day he felt stomach pain leading to nausea. It was not until 5 days later when he
was first seen. He was put on a 24 hour liquid diet which did not help and he received no medicine. The pain continued and the next day he again submitted a medical request (day 6) but was not seen until day 8 - no medicine or treatment was provided and two days later (day 10) he submitted another form and was seen the following day (day 11) - again no treatment or medicine. He was then put on the doctor list and finally saw a doctor 4 days later, on day 16. He was given nausea and diarrhea medicine which did not help and might have made matters worse. 5 days later, now day 21, he was rushed to the hospital after he ended up on the ground vomiting, hyper ventilating with dark red blood shot eyes and severe chest pain. He was in the hospital for 3 days and then placed in the infirmary for another day. At the hospital he was receiving antibiotics via IV and in the infirmary it was switched to pill form. He was brought back to the hospital for vital tests and blood tests on days 25 and 26. Then on day 29 he developed chest pain and was put on pain medicine and ended up going back to the hospital on day 31 for a CT scan.
This person ended up being diagnosed with pneumonia. If you are not aware, pneumonia can kill you
if you do not do something about it.
Generally you need antibiotics to fight it. It is not one of those things that the body
can generally take care of on its own.
The longer you wait to address it, the sicker you get and the longer and
harder is the fight to defeat it – and the greater the likelihood that you can succumb
to it.
This person was the victim of medical neglect. Was it due to some sick retaliatory scheme by
corrections officials? Perhaps it was
not. It could also have been typical
delay and denial tactics of authorities for the purpose of cost savings, or
general lack of caring, to show “who is boss”, due to incompetence or some
other irresponsible reason. The
motivation of the delays and denials does not really matter as it has the same
impact nonetheless – to endanger the health and very life of the prisoner.
There are many ways that the carceral system in the US can
kill a prisoner. Like the police that
seem to be rampantly killing mostly unarmed civilians on the streets,
corrections officials and officers largely have impunity. Inside the prisons it is even worse since
there are rarely witnesses and there never is publicly available video of the
incidents. Since the prisons control
every detail of the lives of the prisoners there are also many more ways to
inflict harm and death on prisoners.
Decarcerate the Garden State is interested in continuing to expose the mistreatment of incarcerated persons by NJ state and local corrections. It is part of our 6th point of action to bring about two way communication between the incarcerated and those of us on the outside that are fighting to change the mass incarceration equation. If you know of such stories or you know incarcerated persons that want to share stories of what is going on on the inside – do share the information and encourage them to share the information. We can keep names out of it if need be. Also we welcome submissions to our blog from incarcerated persons. (Send submissions to Decarc@DecarcerateNJ.org ).
In order to fully facilitate the information flow, we really need to implement
the strategies discussed in the following article. Please contact us if you have any questions
or to let us know that you are working on this:
Poking
A Hole in the Prison Wall – Writing to the Incarcerated in NJ http://decarceratenj.blogspot.com/2015/03/poking-hole-in-prison-wall-writing-to.html
Meanwhile, we need to prepare ourselves to be
willing to respond in many ways to crises inside facilities be it through calls
and letter writing or even mobilization when needed. Things are going to heat up around these
issues in the months and years ahead – we need to prepare for this fight!
No comments:
Post a Comment