NDOC: Forty Five (45) Prisoner Deaths in One (1) Year

On Tuesday, July 7 at 9 am. NV-CURE President John Witherow will be interviewed on Nevada Public Radio 88.9 FM on this subject. 

This comes from our Informational Bulletin nr 12, 2015:

Forty five people have died in custody in Nevada’s prison facilities since August, 2014. Four committed suicide.

One was shot by a prison guard. One died of cardiovascular disease and the rest are either deaths caused, according to NDOC, by “medical condition”, unknown”, “natural”, or “prolonged illness”. We want to know the causes of death and whether any of these deaths are attributable to the Hepatitis C virus.

This information was provided to NV-CURE by an NPR Senior Producer Joe Schoenmann and former Correctional Officer Mark Clarke, whom we thank for their time and efforts regarding this matter.  We hope that further investigation will reveal the facts regarding each of these
deaths.

Not one noted death is from hepatitis C, even though we know that the prevalence of that disease is much higher than in the population at large and we know that NDOC gives very little treatment for this very treatable disease. Allegedly, many of these deaths are “under investigation”, and NV-CURE finally has volunteers willing to keep track of each death, order the coroner’s report, which is a matter of public record, if necessary, and log the deaths on a spreadsheet, making sure that the media, legislators and the US DOJ are made aware of the high number of deaths due to disease. It is estimated that 12-35% of prisoners nationwide are infected with the Hep C virus. We will never know exactly how many prisoners are infected with the disease, until we have testing, which the Nevada legislature and the NDOC refuse to provide.

NDOC claims that they are investigating the potential of providing hospice care, but we have seen no action yet on that claim.

On Tuesday, July 7 at 9 am. NV-CURE President John Witherow will be interviewed on Nevada Public Radio 88.9 FM on this subject. A recording of the program will be posted on our website, Nevaacure.org.  Thank you for your attention to this problem.

[Another!] Nevada inmate dies, at Summerlin Hospital

From Las Vegas Sun, Nov. 13th, 2014, comes this sad news:

"A Nevada inmate died last month at Summerlin Hospital of a medical condition, according to Corrections Department officials.

Officials said they could not locate any next of kin for Denise Leeellen Carlson, 58, who died Oct. 30."

Read more here.

If you are a journalist, please try to find out if there is a lack of medical care, or a reason why so many people in Nevada's prisons die of medical conditions. Thank you.

NDOC's hepatitis c guidelines

These documents show Nevada Dept. of Corrections' guidelines they sent us which NDOC uses for determining if a prisoner should be tested for hepatitus C or if a prisoner infected with hepatitis c should be treated by NDOC.

The documents were sent to Nevada-Cure by NDOC on February 11th, 2014 at NV Cure's request.

View the hep c documents of NDOC here.

About the Medical Care at ESP:

11/16/2011

 

Family and Friends of Prisoners at Ely State Prison:

There is currently a medical care settlement at ESP which the court approved a year ago. An independent medical monitor has been appointed to oversee Ely State Prison's compliance with the agreement for two years. Please write to Amy Fettig, ACLU Staff Counsel regarding ongoing medical issues at ESP. The ACLU is tracking and monitoring complaints and forwarding them for the Monitor's review, according to Amy Fettig. Her address is:

Amy Fettig
Senior Staff Counsel
National Prison Project of the ACLU
915 15th St., NW 7th floor
Washington, DC 20001