We have followed this story from the beginning; since the 1st uprising in December, to the second uprising in February, to the arrest of 3 corrections officers working there in March. 

Reeves Detention Center is a 2,400 inmate PRIVATIZED prison in Texas that houses a large population of undocumented immigrants.  This for-profit prison (like all of them) is administered for the greatest profit possible, of course any corner that can be cut will be!  An inmate needs healthcare attention?  Sorry, costs too much!  Leave him to die!  They may has well have said “let him eat cake.” 

We at Malcolm-Che give our full solidarity to the rightous prisoners who rose up against these horrible conditions when one of their friends died at the hands of these capitalists!!  It was the death of Manuel Galindo that sparked the uprising, but it was the poor food, poor healthcare and anger generated from the indefinate detention of these immigrants that made the uprising possible. 

They took hostages (which they later released), demanded to speak to the Mexican consulate; tried anything they could do to try to get the word out about what was going on inside.  We salute you!  25 of them are up on charges right now resulting from the uprisings, we demand they be given clemency!

From immigration to healthcare to privatized prisons this article touches on so many issues that are important to us.  This is MUST READ!!

Attorney says inmate’s death led to Pecos prison riots 

Here is a pic of the uprising at Reeves County Detention Center in Texas.

PECOS — The death of a 32-year-old epileptic inmate in solitary confinement at Reeves County Detention Center last Dec. 12 touched off the first of two riots that saw fires set and hostages taken, said an attorney for the dead inmate’s family.

Some of the privately run federal lockup’s 2,400 inmates, many of them illegal immigrants, had complained of woeful health care after the riots on Dec. 12-13 and Jan. 31-Feb. 1.

But the story now centers on 32-year-old Jesus Manuel Galindo of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, who El Paso lawyer Miguel “Mike” Torres claims was improperly treated.

Representing Galindo’s widow, three children and parents with co-counsel Leon Schydlower, Torres said last week that a member of a Lubbock physicians’ group that contracts with the prison had examined Galindo just before his death.

“The doctor said Jesus had an attitude problem because he was complaining about the lack of medical treatment that killed him three days later,” said Torres.

Galindo “had no business” being in the Security Housing Unit, Torres said, “because he was only in for minor infractions, not fighting or worse.”

The inmate’s mother had been calling almost daily to say he was not feeling well and was having seizures, said Galindo’s attorney.

“She mailed the prison his medical records, but they sent them back with a curt note that said, ‘Don’t send these again.,’ ” Torres said.

“When they found him at 7 a.m. Dec. 12, rigor mortis had set in, which meant he had been dead for three to five hours,” the attorney said. “I attended his funeral, and the small neighborhood funeral home in south El Paso was filled to overflowing. It was tragic because he was a young man.”

Cellmates rioted

Torres, who said he is taking steps toward a civil lawsuit against the company operating the prison, said Galindo’s former cellmates touched off the riot because they had feared that result. “Everything we learned is that they were worried sick about this guy,” he said.

“They tried to contact the administration and say, ‘Bring him back and we will watch him.’ You have to take this type of medication (Dilantin) at precise times at well-monitored therapeutic levels.”

Judy Madewell, a federal public defender in San Antonio who was handling Galindo’s appeal of a 30-month term for illegal re-entry into the United States, said she has “had concerns for a long time because RCDC has had a number of problems with inmates getting proper medical attention.

“My secretary translated a letter in which Jesus said, ‘I’m afraid I’m going to die and no one will find me!’ ” Madewell said.

“We feel horrible about what happened and feel like there is a lot of responsibility on the facility’s part.”

She reported sending Octavio Vasquez, an investigator with the federal defender’s office in Alpine, to spend three hours with Galindo on Dec. 4.

“He was in the SHU for minor disciplinary infractions,” Madewell said of Galindo.

“Octavio went to the authorities and said, ‘He needs removing from solitary,’ and they said, ‘Yes, we will move him out by this weekend.’ He was still there when he died eight days later.

“Jesus told Octavio the prison was not giving him his meds often enough and lowered the dosage. He was a gentle person — not a problem client, and as far as I know not a problem inmate.”

Assistant Federal Defender Charlotte Harris of Alpine, whose office represented Galindo after his arrest, said the Geo Group of Boca Raton, Fla., operates the detention center with support from Reeves County.

“It’s better for the government to run prisons, rather than private companies, because corners can be cut if you have a profit motive,” said Harris.

No response from prison

A call to the prison last week was referred to Geo Group’s Florida headquarters, where a spokesman asked that questions be submitted by e-mail. Geo did not respond to e-mailed questions.

Two prison recreation specialists were released unharmed after the first riot. The rec center was torched during that melee, and smoke poured from a housing unit during the second, broadcast by cable news, after which three inmates were hospitalized, one missing a finger.

Charged with assault and other crimes, 25 inmates face trial, a court official said.

This is common sense to those of us that have fam/friends in the system.  But its still important, because it gives scientific backup to claims that the prison system really does punish entire families (and communities) not just individuals. 

Prison may explain black health disparity

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/04/23/Prison-may-explain-black-health-disparity/UPI-61851240539359/

ANN ARBOR, Mich., April 23 (UPI) — The U.S. prison system punishes more than just its inmates — it also takes a toll on the health of friends and loved ones left behind, researchers said.

University of Michigan researchers found that people with a family member or friend in prison or jail suffer worse physical and mental health and more stress and depressive symptoms than those without a loved one behind bars.

Lead researchers Daniel Kruger of the University of Michigan School of Public Health said the study results could help explain health disparities between minorities and whites.

“African-Americans are more likely to know someone in prison and to feel closer to the person incarcerated than whites do,” Kruger said in a statement. “It’s like a double whammy.”

The study, published in the Progress in Community Health Partnerships, found 49 percent of African-Americans surveyed reported having a friend or relative in prison during the past five years, compared to 20 percent of whites.

Those who knew someone in prison had 40 percent more days in which poor physical health interfered with their usual activities, including work, and 54 percent more days in which poor mental or emotional health interfered with these activities.

The study consisted of 1,288 adults from Flint, Mich., with 67 percent of respondents white and 26 percent African-American.

More people live behind bars in the United States than in any other country, Kruger said.

The healthcare situation for prisoners in Nevada is reflective of a huge portion of prisoners across the country.  Malcolm-Che has already posted articles on the horrible state of prison healthcare in California and Texas.  Its also interesting to note that many people point to the fact that building prison hospitals would help employ more people.

Judge certifies class action in NV prison suit

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12038849

RENO, Nev.—A federal judge in Nevada on Tuesday certified class action status for a lawsuit filed by inmates who claim inadequate medical care at Ely State Prison constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and civil rights violations.

In his 14-page order, U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks appointed attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union to represent “all prisoners who are now, or in the future will be, in the custody of the Nevada Department of Corrections” at the state’s maximum security prison.

The ACLU filed suit against the prison in March 2008 on behalf of several inmates.

It alleges that deprivation of medical care is so extreme that all inmates are subjected to “constant significant risk of serious injury, medical harm, premature death, and the needless infliction of great physical pain and suffering.”

The ACLU seeks a court-ordered monitor to oversee care at the prison on grounds that the Corrections Department has not provided adequate medical care to the 1,000 inmates, including those on death row.

“The ACLU of Nevada is heartened by the order, which indicates that the federal court is taking allegations of substandard medical care at Ely State Prison very seriously,” ACLU attorney Lee Rowland said in a statement Tuesday.

The class certification, Rowland said, “will permit us to look into the conditions at Ely State Prison in a thorough and thoughtful manner and get the best evidence before the federal court.”

The suit names as defendants members of Nevada’s Prison Board—Gov. Jim Gibbons, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller. Also named are Howard Skolnik, Department of Corrections director; Robert Bannister, corrections medical director; and E.K. McDaniel, the warden at Ely.

Skolnik said Tuesday he had not seen the latest filing and had no comment.

State officials have earlier defended medical practices at Ely, saying they met constitutional standards.

“The operations of an infirmary in a prison are different than working in a hospital,” Skolnik said previously.

Hicks’ ruling comes a week after he refused to dismiss a separate lawsuit alleging prison and medical staff deliberately withheld medical treatment from the former manager of the 1950s Coasters music group, leading to his slow and painful death from gangrene while on death row in Nevada.

That suit, filed by the family of Patrick Cavanaugh, seeks unspecified general, special and punitive damages. Cavanaugh, a diabetic, died in 2006 at age 60.

In Dec. 2007, the ACLU released a report written by Dr. William Noel claiming a pattern of “gross medical abuse” at the prison.

Noel said he reviewed the medical records of 35 Ely inmates, including Cavanaugh. In his report, he described treatment as “the most shocking and callous disregard for human life and human suffering, that I have ever encountered in the medical profession in my 35 years of practice.”

“…evidence in an inmate lawsuit showed that inadequate medical care at the state’s 33 prisons was killing at least one inmate a week.”

Judge rejects returning prison care to state

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/25/BAI316M314.DTL

(03-24) 12:33 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s request to return health care in California prisons to state control Tuesday, ruling that a court-appointed overseer is still needed to restore basic medical treatment in the overcrowded and understaffed prisons.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson in San Francisco said that although health care has improved under federal management since 2006, he has “no confidence that such improvements would continue, or even be maintained,” if the state regained control now.

Federal management “is not and was never intended to be a permanent solution,” and will end as soon as the state shows it is able to run the system, the judge said.

Henderson appointed a receiver to run the prison health system in 2006, saying evidence in an inmate lawsuit showed that inadequate medical care at the state’s 33 prisons was killing at least one inmate a week. State officials had shown themselves incapable of complying with the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the judge said.

The current receiver, law Professor Clark Kelso, has submitted an $8 billion plan to build seven health centers for 10,000 prisoners and improve some existing medical centers. He said last month that only 5,000 new beds may be needed, at about half the cost.

After the Legislature refused last year to approve bond funding for prison hospitals, Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and Attorney General Jerry Brown, a Democrat, asked Henderson to remove Kelso, arguing that his plan was too lavish and costly and that his appointment had been illegal.

In response to Tuesday’s ruling, Kelso issued a statement saying he looks forward to “working collaboratively with state officials and agencies to achieve our shared goal of improving prison medical and health care to constitutional levels” and returning management to the state.

State officials said they would ask an appeals court to overrule Henderson.

“The federal receivership has become its own autonomous government, operating outside the normal checks and balances of state and federal law,” Brown said in a statement. “It is time for a dose of fiscal common sense.”

The state has also appealed Henderson’s order requiring it to spend $250 million to renovate prison health centers under Kelso’s plan.

In separate proceedings, a three-judge panel, including Henderson, has ruled that overcrowding at the prisons – now filled at twice their designed capacity of 80,000 – was the primary cause of inadequate health care, and has tentatively ordered the release of between 37,000 and 58,000 inmates to local custody, treatment programs or parole. Schwarzenegger plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

At a hearing in Henderson’s court last week, a state lawyer argued that federal law prohibits judges from appointing managers to take over state prison operations and also forbids judges from requiring prison construction.

Attorney Paul Mello also said the state was spending $14,000 per inmate on health care each year, the most in the nation, and more than $2 billion on the system overall. Citing a reduction in inmate deaths, Mello said federal management was no longer needed.

In Tuesday’s ruling, Henderson said federal law does not restrict judges’ authority to temporarily remove prison operations from state officials who have mismanaged them. He also noted that the state consented to the appointment of a receiver as early as 2005 and never objected until last summer.

Kelso’s plan is expensive, Henderson said, but providing adequate health care in the nation’s largest prison system is costly, “and it is even more costly when the receivership must make up for the years of neglect by the state.”

He noted, for example, what court experts found at San Quentin State Prison in 2005. A nursing office was located in a filthy room without medical equipment, an examination table, a sink or a telephone. A clogged shower drain outside the office left standing water outside the door. The previous nursing office had been in a broom closet.

State governments across the country are making budget cuts that will negatively affect those who can least afford it.  Expect more of this to come.

States Cut Medicaid Coverage Further

Esmin Green was left to die in a NYC hospital.  What happened to her is a symbol of the disastrous health care system of the USA.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/25/AR2008122501148.html?nav=rss_email%2Fcomponents

States from Rhode Island to California are being forced to curtail Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, as they struggle to cope with the deteriorating economy.

With revenue falling at the same time that more people are losing their jobs and private health coverage, states already have pared their programs and many are looking at deeper cuts for the coming year. Already, 19 states — including Maryland and Virginia — and the District of Columbia have lowered payments to hospitals and nursing homes, eliminated coverage for some treatments, and forced some recipients out of the insurance program completely.

Many are halting payments for health-care services not required by the federal government, such as physical therapy, eyeglasses, hearing aids and hospice care. A few states are requiring poor patients to chip in more toward their care.

“It’s not a pretty list at all,” said Michael Hales, Medicaid director in Utah.

Medicaid, a central piece of the Great Society safety net created in the 1960s, is the nation’s largest source of government health insurance. It covered 50 million Americans last year. The program is a shared responsibility of the federal government and the states, with federal money paying an average of 57 percent of the bills and states providing the rest.

Federal health officials set minimum rules about who can enroll and what care must be covered, but states are free to add to the basics. Those optional patients and services are what many states are rethinking now.

With the program the largest or second-largest expense in every state’s budget, governors and state legislators have been pleading with Congress and the incoming Obama administration for help. The Democrats, who hold majorities in the House and the Senate, are sounding sympathetic for now. They are considering close to $100 billion to increase the share of Medicaid’s costs that the federal government would pay during the next two years.

President-elect Barack Obama also is open to extra help for Medicaid as part of a broad strategy to spur the economy. “We are considering a number of proposals . . . including helping states meet Medicaid needs; reducing health-care costs; rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges and schools; and ensuring that more families can stay in their homes,” said Nick Shapiro, an Obama transition spokesman.

According to a Washington source who is in close contact with lawmakers, some in Congress also are beginning to entertain the idea of allowing unemployed people who have lost health benefits to sign up for Medicaid, with federal money paying the entire bill.

In the meantime, uncertainty over how much help may come, and when it might arrive, is prompting many states to make the biggest reductions to their Medicaid programs in years — and in some cases, ever.

Diane Rowland, executive director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, said the pressure on Medicaid programs is particularly acute because the economy has deteriorated so soon after a milder recession early in the decade. States already “have taken the cuts that were making the program more efficient. . . . Now they are making . . . cuts into the core,” she said.

Nineteen states and the District have cut Medicaid for the current fiscal year, according to a survey this month by Families USA, a liberal consumer health lobby. All but one, plus six other states, are drafting deeper reductions for the coming fiscal year that they hope to avoid. Florida’s Medicaid officials have just handed the governor and legislature a blueprint for a 10 percent reduction; it would eliminate coverage for 7,800 18- and 19-year-olds and 6,800 pregnant women.

Among the states with the gravest financial problems — and pressures on Medicaid — is California. In July, Medi-Cal, as the program there is known, slashed by 10 percent the rates it pays hospitals, nursing homes, speech pathologists and other providers of health care. It tried to lower payments to doctors and dentists, too, but they have sued to block the decreases.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has asked the state legislature to approve other cuts, including an end to dental care for adults, about 1 million of whom use it now, and a sharp reduction in care for recent immigrants.

At two hospitals run by NorthBay Healthcare, midway between San Francisco and Sacramento, about one patient in five is on Medi-Cal. The rate cuts translate into a $4 million loss this year. In September, the health system closed a rehabilitation program for children that provided physical therapy, speech therapy and other help to about 300 young patients at a time — with 100 more usually on the waiting list.

“It was heart-wrenching to have to go out and announce,” said Steve Huddleston, NorthBay’s vice president of public affairs.

The strain has spread through the Washington area. The District’s Medicaid rolls have risen by 5,000 in the past year to nearly 150,000. To cope, the District made $20 million worth of changes to the program and a separate fund for people who are uninsured, including postponing an increase in payments to primary-care doctors.

In Maryland, Medicaid enrollment has jumped by 8 percent in the past year, and the state has pared $82 million from the program for this year, reducing planned increases in payments to nursing homes, managed-care organizations, private nurses and home health aides. With a larger state deficit forecast for next year, Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) is expected to propose deeper cuts in his budget next month, probably including a lengthy delay of the state’s biggest Medicaid expansion in years: a planned extension of coverage to 100,000 parents and other adults.

In October, Virginia eliminated a small fund for indigent patients. For the coming year, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) has just proposed $245 million in cuts from the nearly $3.3 billion that the commonwealth devotes to Medicaid, including reduced payments to hospitals and new limits on home health care.

Rhode Island’s approach has been the most far-reaching to date. This week, it announced an agreement with U.S. health officials that would, if the state legislature consents, change the entire financial basis of the program. The state would forfeit its Medicaid entitlement and accept a total of $12 billion in federal money over the next five years. In exchange, Rhode Island would win uncommon freedom from federal rules, allowing it to enroll all its Medicaid patients in managed care, cover less treatment and expand care for elderly patients at home, instead of in more-expensive nursing homes.

In South Carolina, Medicaid officials last week announced the third round of cuts since August. They are “real unpleasant stuff,” said Jeff Stensland, spokesman for the state’s Department of Health and Human Services. The program will stop paying for most dental care for adults, eliminate nutritional supplements, cut home-delivered meals from 14 a week to seven, curtail mental health counseling, stop building wheelchair ramps and pay for fewer breast and cervical cancer screenings.

Edna McClain, founder of Hospice Care of Tri-County in Columbia, S.C., helped coax state health officials to expand Medicaid to cover nursing care and other support for dying patients in the mid-1990s.

She was stunned this month when an e-mail arrived from South Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services informing her that as of Jan. 1, Medicaid no longer would pay for new hospice patients. And after March 31, it would stop covering most people on Medicaid already in hospice care.

With a $500,000 hole in her budget, she worries about how to care for low-income hospice patients, including a 47-year-old man whose weakened body is dangerously retaining fluid as he awaits a liver transplant.

The day after she received notice from the state, McClain composed a letter and fired it off to 107 state legislators. “They can at least hear from me,” she said. But she knows, she said, her protest is too late to make a difference.

An astounding 99.8% of emergency room phsyicians in this study believe police use excessive force.  And over 71% of them admitted they did not report instances of suspected excessive force… showing their complicity in the crimes of the police state.  If we can’t count on doctors to have the compassion in their hearts to speak up about this, then who the hell can we count on?  Aren’t they violating the hypocratic oath or something?!  The nature of this system is that no one wants to bump heads with the most powerful gang on the streets:  the police.  These doctors count on cops to protect them when patients get all crazy, and ‘one hand washes the other.’  You snitch on the cops for beating up these people and using excessive force, you better believe you can’t count on the same quality of help when you’re in need.  And that same situation plays out all across the whole system.  No one dares bump heads with this violent and brutal gang – the Fraternal Order of Police – and that includes speaking the truth about brother Mumia Abu-Jamal.  Even speaking the truth on this man’s innocence is enough to get trashed and targetted.

Police use excessive force, ER docs say

One of the most famous victims of police brutality (AKA “excessive force”)…  Rodney King.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081224/hl_nm/us_police_er

Damn, even the WHO is saying we need universal healthcare?!  It must be getting reeeal bad!  This was one of the first issues that brought me closer to socialist thinking, after all “universial healthcare” should be called “socialist healthcare.” 

WHO study backs universal health care

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSLS48634320080828?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

GENEVA (Reuters) – Major inequalities in health and life expectancy persist worldwide, according to an independent World Health Organization commission which on Thursday called for all countries to offer universal health care.

Huge discrepancies also exist within countries, including Scotland where a boy born in the poor Glasgow suburb of Calton can expect to live to 54, 28 years less than one born in affluent Lenzie, just across town, it said.

“The health inequities we see in the world are absolutely dramatic in their scale,” Michael Marmot, a WHO health researcher, who chaired the commission, told reporters.

“Between countries we have life expectancy differences of more than 40 years. A woman in Botswana can expect to live 43 years, in Japan 86 years.”

The Commission on Social Determinants of Health, composed of 19 independent experts, handed over its three-year study to the World Health Organization, a United Nations agency.

“Social injustice is killing people on a grand scale,” it declared.

Marmot, head of the epidemiology and public health department at University College London, said the report recommended universal health care systems should be available to people regardless of their ability to pay.

“Virtually all advanced countries have universal health care systems but we don’t think that should be limited to high-income countries,” he added.

INABILITY TO PAY

The sustainability of health care systems is a concern for all countries, amid growing “commercialization” of services, according to the commission. It favored financing health care through general taxation and/or mandatory universal insurance.

Each year, more than 100 million people worldwide are pushed into poverty due to catastrophic health care costs, it said.

“We are distressed by the reports of health care simply being unavailable to people because of inability to pay. We see that throughout low- and middle-income countries,” Marmot said.

Health care is also a key issue in the U.S. presidential campaign, with both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain proposing to fix what they call a broken system.

Some 15.3 percent of Americans had no public or private health insurance in 2007, down from 15.8 percent in 2006, according to the latest U.S. figures released on Monday. A total of 45.7 million people were uninsured, down from 47 million.

In the United States, minorities are more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer and colorectal cancer than whites, the report said. In Indonesia, maternal mortality is three to four times higher among the poor than the rich.

Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, said WHO’s Executive Board would examine the report at its January meeting and submit proposals to the annual meeting of its 193 member states in May.

“The importance of prevention continues to grow, partly because of escalating health care costs. We simply cannot afford the way we go about doing health care nowadays without tackling and doing more prevention,” she said.

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, former Chilean president Ricardo Lagos Escobar and former Mozambique health minister Pascoal Mocumbi served on the commission.