Part 5 - Pervasive Problems at Cook County Jail - Access to Medical and Dental Care
This is the fifth installment of what was contained in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division report about Cook County Jail. It concentrates on prisoner access to medical and dental care.
How about sick call?
Here’s how bad access to medical care is. And, this is from July 25, 2007, six months after Dart was sworn in as sheriff:
One of the investigators brings to the attention (page 56) of the medical staff that a prisoner has “requested medical treatment (several times) for staples and sutures left in his scalp and sutures that had been left in his arm.”No response from the medical types.
Now get this next sentence:
”He reportedly was placed in lock down for ten days for making repeated requests for medical care. It is inappropriate to punish inmates for requesting medical care.”Dental care?
One dentist for 9,500 prisoners.Extractions only (page 57). Twenty-five percent resulted in chronic infections (inflammation/disease of the bone or dry sockets).
The jail has lost its accreditation (page 58) from the National Commission on Correctional Health.
With that loss went the incentive to measure performance of the medical system.
And mental health care?
Not too high on the priority list when budget cutting time comes (page 59).
Tomorrow: Suicide and fire prevention.
Previous stories:
Part 1 - Pervasive Problems at Cook County Jail - Sheriff Tom Dart's Goals
Part 2 - Pervasive Problems at Cook County Jail - 2007 Complaints of Physical Abuse to Inmates
Part 3 - Pervasive Problems at Cook County Jail - Causes of and Cures for Physical Abuse
Part 4 - Pervasive Problems at Cook County Jail - Medical Care
3 comments:
what do you expect? The Chief Operating Officer at Cermak is David "the Political Fungus" Fagus, the haplees doofus Democratic Committeeman of Chicago's Far North Side 49th Ward. the best thing I can say about Fagus is that no matter what scandal come out at Cermak, he must be doing a better job there than as ward committeeman, because most of the inmates at Cermak and the County Jail are still breathing!
I always new when I was losing a student in Cook County to the penitentiary. They would come to class with a mouth full of bloody cotton because the Dentist had pulled all of their questionable teeth in anticipation of the long incarceration downstate. That was usually the last tutoring session with me.
Other interesting advice... my buddy was told to have a good breakfast before presenting at Maybrook for the bus to County. The bus would do the whole circut of court houses and there would be no food. He finally got to county at midnight after starting out in Maywood at 8am. They gave him a baloney sandwich at midnight and sent him off to cell block.
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