This insanity just has to stop. How many more people is society going to let die because they were essentially confined to debtors’ prison over a token amount of money and then mistreated?
Not to mention people arrested by armed US Marshals for failure to pay student debt, people thrown in jail for minor traffic transgressions, mentally ill people tossed into the slammer instead of being treated and even people guilty of crimes who aren’t given proper medical attention.
Around noon July 21, 2015, Joyce Curnell was taken from Edisto Island by ambulance to the hospital as she complained of nausea and vomiting...
At some point at the hospital, it was discovered that she had a bench warrant in a 2011 shoplifting case. She had been put on a payment plan in April 2012 to cover $1,148.90 in fines related to the charge, according to court records, but she quit paying the following January. After she didn’t respond to a letter from the court, the warrant was issued in August 2014…
Instead of staying in the jail’s medical facility, Curnell was taken to a housing unit. Jail officers reported later that she vomited “through the night” and “couldn’t make it to the bathroom,”...
The jailers said they informed the medical staff of Curnell’s condition, but the experts “refused to provide any medical attention to (her) whatsoever,”...
She couldn’t eat breakfast the next morning. No records indicated that she was given water or intravenous fluids to prevent dehydration, the filings added.
A sheriff’s incident report stated that the medical staff checked her around 2 p.m., but within three hours she was dead.
What is it going to take for people to care enough to stop the police-prison-industrial complex from treating those unfortunate enough to fall into its maw without a modicum of decency, and for society to stop torturing people who are indebted using collections agents and bench warrants — to the point of despair?
Maria Gibson, the Medical University Hospital doctor serving as an expert witness for the family, said in an affidavit that Curnell died of complications from her sickness...
“Simply put,” the doctor said, “Ms. Curnell died because she was deprived of water.”
As if this wasn’t crazy enough, the article states that after more than six months no one has yet determined how the police came to be called on a person brought to a hospital for nausea and vomiting.
Right.