CHOWCHILLA, CALIF.
Medical neglect kills women prisoners
By Anne
Sadler
Over 150 bereaved family members, friends and
prisoner-rights activists traveled hundreds of miles to this
women's maximum-security prison Jan. 27 to express their
outrage at the recent rash of unnecessary and preventable
deaths here.
The memorial protest commemorated the lives of these women
who died from lack of medical care. Wearing black and
carrying replica tombstones with the names of the victims who
were mothers, sisters, daughters and aunts, marchers
demonstrated in front of the gates of this prison that is
surrounded by hundreds of miles of farmland.
Chowchilla is the biggest women's prison in the United
States. Over 3,000 women are incarcerated here.
Also here, an unprecedented 17 healthcare-related deaths
have occurred in one year. Nine of them were in the last two
months of 2000 alone.
These traumatic and unexpected deaths may appear on the
surface to be unrelated. But a clear pattern of health-care
neglect in the California prison system is apparent.
Most if not all of these deaths could have been prevented
if proper, timely medical care had been available. Instead,
these women--some who were due to be paroled within a matter
of weeks--were given a death sentence at the hands of the
state of California.
Guards with minimal medical training are allowed, within
their adversarial role with prisoners, to decide who lives
and who dies under their "care." Prison-rights activists say
that guards decide who gets medical attention and who gets to
see advanced medical professionals.
Even getting a yes decision is no guarantee of adequate
medical attention. "We have been fighting for medical care at
this prison for over seven years. It's tragic that women are
still dying from criminally negligent health care," said Beth
Feinberg of California Prison Focus.
The Jan. 27 protest was organized by a coalition of prison
activist groups including Legal Services for Prisoners with
Children, California Prison Focus, Justice Now and the
California Coalition for Women Prisoners.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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