Lawsuit filed in Schenectady County inmate’s death
https://dailygazette.com/article/2017/04/27/lawsuit-filed-in-schenectady-county-inmate-s-death
Schenectady County Jail medical staff failed to provide proper medication to a man with a variety of ailments, leading to his death last year, a new lawsuit contends.
Jimmy Richardson, 53, of Emmett Street, died at the jail Jan. 17, 2016, of a heart issue. The lawsuit contends he managed his health concerns outside the jail, but that the jail medical staff contributed to his death by withholding some medication and changing pain medication.
“While [Richardson] was obviously not the healthiest person, he had been successfully managing his medical conditions for several years. It was not until the defendants denied him his medication for several weeks … that [Richardson] died,” the suit reads, adding that the defendants’ actions caused his death.
Richardson’s widow, Bernita Richardson, filed the suit last week in federal court in Albany seeking unspecified damages. Attorney E. Robert Keach is representing the estate.
Named as defendants are the jail’s medical provider Correctional Medical Care, Schenectady County and individuals connected to the jail and medical provider.
Correctional Medical Care President Emre Umar issued a statement Friday saying that, while the company is “always saddened to learn about any loss of life or negative medical outcome,” it “stands by the quality of services provided.”
Umar noted that jails house “a population with the highest levels of chronic disease, mental health and substance-abuse problems,” and the company employs thousands of qualified and caring professionals.
“It has become a cottage industry for some plaintiffs’ attorneys to abuse public perception and distort and exaggerate facts under the pretense that they care about this patient population, doing so for their own personal financial gain,” Umar’s statement reads. “This complaint, like any other, will go through the litigation process to separate facts from unfounded allegations.”
According to the lawsuit, Richardson “died a preventable death.”
Richardson suffered from a series of ailments, including a cardiac disease called Brugada’s Syndrome that can cause sudden death. He took various medications to address his conditions. He also took strong opiate pain medication that can cause withdrawal symptoms if stopped, the suit reads.
The suit alleges he wasn’t provided with any of his medication in his first stint at the jail and that records showing he received medication from the start of his second stint are fabricated.
The suit notes that attorneys are still waiting for Richardson’s pharmacy records, but based the fabrication allegations on a medical provider’s note in conflict with his jail medical records and numerous handwritten “sick call” slips written by Richardson. He wrote in one dated Jan. 11, 2016, included in the suit “I am Hurting so Bad I need Help!!!”
Medical records did record that Richardson did not receive any pain medication beyond Tylenol until Jan. 13, 2016, the suit reads, due to an apparent problem with a prescription written by a jail doctor.
However, the prescription also changed his pain medication to morphine without consulting his personal doctor. He then received overdoses, the suit alleges.
The night before he died, the suit alleges that Richardson again sought help and was in “obvious need of medical assistance,” but a corrections officer threatened him with disciplinary action and denied him care.
“The case is obviously in the early stages and we need more information,” Keach said Thursday, “but Mr. Richardson’s death is certainly indicative of a disturbing pattern of deaths at correctional facilities where health care is overseen by Correctional Medical Care.”
Keach has brought lawsuits for other deaths at the Schenectady County Jail and elsewhere related to Correctional Medical Care’s work.
He filed a lawsuit in January over the death of 57-year-old Michael Revels, alleging Schenectady County Jail medical officials continually interrupted his medication, leading to his November 2015 death. That case remains pending.
Keach earlier won a $425,000 settlement in a 2013 Schenectady County Jail death and an undisclosed settlement in the 2014 suicide of an inmate at the jail after his suit contended he sought help for depression.
Any settlements involve no county money as part of the county’s agreement with the company, Gardner has said.
Correctional Medical Care’s contract with the county ran out in December and has been extended through June, Gardner said. The county is preparing a request for proposals to determine whether Correctional Medical Care or another company gets the next contract, Gardner said.
Filed under: General Problems
What is detestable in virtually all these cases where the defendants are found negligent, culpable, guilty…pick a semantic device for the wilful and deliberate harming or killing of another human being where either outcome is, at a minimum, a gross violation of the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution, is that the actors, both as individuals and collectively, found to be responsible for what would be treated as a crime and prosecuted as a felony if it were a private citizen inflicting this on another private citizen or an agent of the State (somehow employees of Leviathan government are more equal and accorded greater protections than the mundanes that are comprised of a cohort known as you, me and anyone else who is employed in the productive sector or retired).
So when damages are tallied up, after all appeals are expended and there is no longer any space left for said actors and their attorneys to engage further in the Weasel Dance, guess who ultimately foots the bill for the payment of those damages? If you guessed the taxpayer and some insurance carrier (where the culpable actor is a private corporate entity working under contract for the State, you are correct. Whatever happened to the notion of personal responsibility? This idea that the State and/or its employees are found guilty of some horrendous act or acts of violating the Natural Rights of a citizen and in the course of doing so, have depleted the citizen of their vital substance up to the point of and including death and the penalty is spread amongst a large pool of individuals who had nothing to do with such dark deeds.
So now it appears that because of the depletion of the institutions or the State’s General Treasury, the elected official or the bureaucrat who is in charge of the entity where the “crime” of violating the rights and the taking of the life of a private citizen or the politicians who are given the responsibility of the stewardship of the larger treasury have the temerity to go hat in hand asking for more funding to replace that which was used to pay the damages. In the case of the taxpayer, they get to pay twice. Once for the damages and again to replace what came out of the State’s Chest ‘o’ Booty to pay those damages.
How about requiring the individuals found culpable to pay some amount, albeit what would be considered symbolic in light of the funds needed to cover the damage award? It has to hurt some or there will be no deterrent effect. If the C.O.’s union wants to pass the hat to help assuage their brother’s pain for not behaving like a decent human being in their treatment of another human being, I would opine, NO! The guilty have to come up with the “fine” by their own industry and/or ingenuity. How about 10% of their annual salary for three years, post tax? That might put a cork in the “dignity loss’ that seems to afflict this kinds of public institutions.
Yes, I realize that the inmates would work this situation to the maximum, if for no other reason than having something better to do. Big surprise. That’s what they do. It may make one’s job a little more difficult, but if that is what it takes so that a private citizen with a number of comorbidities does not report for a short stay that turns into an extrajudicial execution by torture (that is a very appropriate and accurate description of Mr. Richardson’s fate), then so be it.
For the record, I once worked as a contract employee for an agency and was assigned to work at a State operated correctional facility. Lest anyone accuse me of talking out of my anal aperture, I do have a very good notion of how this all works. My knowledge may not be perfect, but I am far better informed and qualified to speak than most other health care providers in our society. I don’t pick sides. I choose to stand where the Truth prevails striving to do the next right thing, as one taking one step after another, navigating the path of this existence.