XAVIUS SCULLARK-JOHNSON, PRISONER, DIES AFTER BEING DENIED HEALTH CARE - He was left in his urine-soaked cell to perish after a nurse turned away an ambulance the prison doctor ordered. Xavius was denied transport to medical care although he had suffered several seizures. Xavius had schizophrenia as well as a seizure disorder.
DOG JUSTICE FOR THE MENTALLY ILL
Xavius Scullark-Johnson, 27, was three months away from getting out of prison when he died in June 2010. He was serving a five-month sentence for a probation violation stemming from a second-degree assault conviction. Now his mother, Olivia Scullark, is suing two nurses employed by the Minnesota Department of Corrections at the Rush City prison, as well as other medical staff and corrections officers, according to the Pioneer Press. Scullark told The Huffington Post she filed the lawsuit because that's what her son, who suffered from schizophrenia and a seizure disorder, told her to do if he didn't make it out of the prison alive.
"You can't even leave an animal like that," Ms. Scullark said about her son's senseless death. "I'm pretty angry, but I'm glad that some justice is gonna come."
According to DOC documents and ambulance reports obtained by the Tribune, Scullark-Johnson was found "soaked in urine on the floor of his cell" on the night of June 28, 2010. "He was coiled in a fetal position and in an altered state of consciousness that suggested he had suffered a seizure," according to notes taken by nurse Linda Andrews.
The Tribune notes that ambulance runs are "strictly monitored" in "an effort to cut costs" by Corizon Inc., the for-profit company contracted by the DOC to care for its prisoners. Read the entire news story in Huffington Post at this link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/xavius-scullark-johnson-dead_n_1625547.html
IT IS TIME FOR AMERICANS TO ASK THE TERMS OF THE HEALTH CARE PLAN WE HAVE BEEN DRAFTED TO BUY. Does it include enforced microchips and vaccines? Will the health care benefits under the plan decline according to the U.S. economy? Is medical neglect that many prisoners suffer indicative of government health care provisions? Note that the medical neglect in this article involved a young man serving light a sentence. He did not need expensive intervention like brain surgery or cancer treatments, but he was neglected to death. So are many other prisoners who must depend on government health care. Institutionalized people rely on the U.S. Department of Justice to uphold their rights, and that agency fails them.
In 2008, I read that eight California prisoners died that year of tooth decay when infections from their rotting teeth entered their bloodstreams. Judges and juries sentence defendants they find guilty to prison, not to torture and slow death by medical neglect or brutality. Those are backdoor death penalties that inmates do not deserve. (There are two links and two photos in this article.) Some prisoners who died in jail due to medical neglect were awaiting trial and had not been found guilty of any offenses whatsoever. Inhumane treatment is happening throughout the nation to people who depend on the government for their health care in state and federal correctional facilities.
Can Americans be sure that we who are not prisoners will be treated any better than Xavius or Kathia Casseus? See Kathia's story in DogJusticeforMentallyIll blog, entitled "Prison, Sex Abuse and Death for Retarded Teen?" at this link http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2012/07/prison-sex-aubse-and-death-for-retarded.html ) We should care more about prisoner health care. Lawsuits cost more than treatment, for one thing. Secondly, if we miss paying our premiums for coverage under the national health care plan, we could find ourselves behind bars! That's government tough love.
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Final paragraph to this article is worth repeating: Can Americans be sure that we who are not prisoners will be treated any better than Xavius or Kathia Casseus? See Kathia's story in DogJusticeforMentallyIll blog, entitled "Prison, Sex Abuse and Death for Retarded Teen?" at this link http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2012/07/prison-sex-aubse-and-death-for-retarded.html ) We should care more about prisoner health care. Lawsuits cost more than treatment, for one thing. Secondly, if we miss paying our premiums for coverage under the national health care plan, we could find ourselves behind bars! That's government tough love.
You're arguing the wrong point here - this is not about health care per se, it is about the privitization of prisons. From your post:
The Tribune notes that ambulance runs are "strictly monitored" in "an effort to cut costs" by Corizon Inc., the for-profit company contracted by the DOC to care for its prisoners.
It wasn't the government that failed to provide timely health care for this prisoner, it was the for-profit company caring for the prisoners. "Privitization" is a Republican mantra these days; in this case, privitization is to blame for this man's death. So, what else shall we privatize?
Mary Neal, you're wrong. Don't want to pay for health insurance? Fine. Pay the penalty. It'll cost you less than 1 month's premiums.
Thanks for responding, Progressive. Privatizing prisons was very negative for human rights in America. Did you know that every prison is under the U.S. Department of Justice, a federal agency? Do you know that the federal government itself uses privatized prisons - even after they brutalize inmates? Read a story about Frank Horton, a mentally ill inmate who was brutalized in a prison owned by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in Nashville, TN. Frank was close to death when his guard reported his abusive living conditions. Frank had been held for nine months in solitary confinment living in filth. Despite the abuse, CCA continued to be awarded federal contracts with guaranteed rates of occupancy. See an excerpt below:
NASHVILLE - Corrections Corporation of America announced today that it has been awarded a contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to house up to 2,567 federal inmates at CCA's recently completed 2,232-bed Adams County Correctional Center in Mississippi.
The four-year contract, awarded as part of the Criminal Alien Requirement 8 Solicitation ("CAR 8"), also provides for up to three two-year renewal options and includes contract provisions that are materially comparable to the Company's other contracts with the BOP, including a 50 percent guarantee of occupancy during activation period and a 90 percent guarantee thereafter. CCA expects to receive a Notice to Proceed within 120 days of the contract award and expects to commence receiving inmates during the third quarter of 2009. Under the provisions of the award, the company could earn revenues of up to approximately $226.4 million during the initial four-year term of the contract.
Continue reading at NowPublic.com: Torture Mentally Ill~ 9 mo. Solitary Confinement in Filth, Naked | NowPublic News Coverage
http://www.nowpublic.com/health/torture-mentally-ill-9-mo-solitary-confinement-filth-naked#ixzz26O33is2d
So you see, there is complicity between the federal government and private prisons to keep those facilities full, which is a slave contract.
You recommend that people who do not want insurance under the national health care plan should pay the penalty. Did you know that people who cannot pay the penalty may be subject to arrest? Obviously, poor Americans are to have no authority over their own bodies.
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