Doing Time Like a Spy by John Kiriakou

Author:John Kiriakou
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rare Bird Books
Published: 2017-05-11T00:52:33+00:00

The Stress of a

Hostile System

I believe firmly that medical care is the most important challenge any prisoner faces in the American penal system. Indeed, poor medical care has led to riots in higher-security prisons, and in the short time that I was in Loretto four prisoners died of preventable illnesses and incidents. I had only been at Loretto for a week when I had my first exposure to Health Services, which the medical unit has the nerve to call itself.

First some background: prison officials are compelled by law to provide prisoners with adequate medical care. In order to prove that these officials treated them with “deliberate indifference”—that is, that they provided substandard medical care in defiance of the law—prisoners must prove that the medical provider knew of the seriousness of their illness but failed to take “reasonable steps to abate the risk.”2

Health officers’ knowledge can be proven with both circumstantial and direct evidence. This can include the fact that the prisoner had gone to sick call to report the problem, whether the medical condition significantly affected daily activities, or whether there was “chronic and substantial pain.”3

The courts have found that a “serious medical need” is present whenever the failure to treat a prisoner’s condition “could result in further significant injury or the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain if not treated.”4 The courts have held further that significant injury, pain, or loss of function can constitute “serious medical needs” even if they are not life-threatening.5 Pain can constitute a “serious medical need” even if the failure to treat it does not make the condition worse.

The bottom line is this: if a prisoner is ill or injured, prison medical officials must provide adequate and appropriate treatment. I’ve heard prison officials complain that there are malingerers among the prison population, especially those prisoners who simply don’t want to work that day. But we’re talking here about prisoners who are obviously sick or injured and who are willing to pay the two-dollar medical co-pay designed to keep the malingerers out of the medical unit’s sick call line.

June 21, 2013

“Letter from Loretto”

Hello again from the Federal Correctional Institution at Loretto, Pennsylvania. First, I wanted to thank everybody for the interest in my first letter. We had more than one million hits! Second, thank you for the more than two hundred letters I’ve received since the last letter was published. I’m answering each of them, but sending them out is a slow process because I have to use mailing labels and we’re only allowed to print five per day. Third, thank you very much for your very generous contributions to my family. I’ve told several of you that I could only make it through this nightmare because of friends and supporters like you, and I mean it.

Health care is a major topic of debate in the national press, especially now that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is law. Health care is also a major topic of conversation and debate here at Loretto, although we prisoners don’t have much authority to change the status quo.

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