美国国家公共电台 NPR Angola Prison Lawsuit Poses Question: What Kind Of Medical Care Do Inmates Deserve?

DON GONYEA, HOST:

Louisiana State Penitentiary 1, or Angola Prison, is known for extremes. It's an enormous, maximum-security prison. And it's so remote most of the medical needs of the prisoners are met right at the prison. But according to some inmates 3 and former inmates, that health care has become as harsh as the long sentences. Amanda Aronczyk of member station WNYC brings us this story.

AMANDA ARONCZYK, BYLINE 4: According to Francis Brauner, this is what happened. He was serving a 20-year prison sentence for a rape 5 charge that he denies. He was at Dixon Correctional Institute in Louisiana, where part of his punishment was hard labor 6.

FRANCIS BRAUNER: I was working in the field.

ARONCZYK: He was cutting grass with a hoe.

BRAUNER: And my back was hurting me real bad to the point where if I'd breathe, it was hurting.

ARONCZYK: He went to see the prison doctor. Doctor says, you need to go back out into the fields, but you don't have to cut the grass. Just walk.

BRAUNER: I mean, you walking miles and miles every day and up hills - they bring you up hills and down hills, rocky places, you know, to make it uncomfortable for you.

ARONCZYK: He could sit down. But when he stood back up, something snapped.

BRAUNER: Made my whole body jump. Felt like I was hit by a bolt of lightning or something. I mean, the pain just shot from my head to my toes.

ARONCZYK: Something had gone wrong. He seemed to be paralyzed from the waist down. That prison couldn't handle his medical needs, so he ended up being transferred to Angola Prison. But he says when he got there, he was left in a bed for 30 days, largely unattended. His infections got so bad they nearly killed him.

BRAUNER: My wounds got severe, and it actually - you know, my muscle tissue and that - and left gaping 7, open wounds.

ARONCZYK: At this point, Brauner, who's in his early 50s with a tidy beard and thoughtful glasses, pauses. He picks up his phone, and then he thumbs through the photos...

BRAUNER: And...

ARONCZYK: ...To show me one of a wound on his backside.

Oh, my God.

BRAUNER: So, you know, now you've got a good idea of what...

ARONCZYK: Yeah.

BRAUNER: ...I'm going through.

ARONCZYK: That's pretty visceral.

Francis Brauner is no longer an inmate 2. He was released from Angola Prison in 2015. His story was crucial in understanding what goes on behind the gates at the prison. We tried for months to get permission to get in.

So we're standing 8 in front. It's Louisiana State Penitentiary. We're at basically the gate to get in or not get in.

And we were denied access.

And today, we are not getting in.

One person who has wrangled 9 regular visitation rights is Nick Trenticosta. He's a lawyer who represents death penalty cases. A couple of years ago, he went to see Francis Brauner.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: When I went to visit him this last time, he was paralyzed and in the hospital.

ARONCZYK: The two had known each other for years. Even though Trenticosta has been going to the prison practically every month for the past three decades, he didn't recall ever seeing the hospital ward 10 before, and he was shocked.

TRENTICOSTA: I opened the shower door. It was moldy 11 and mildew 12, and nobody went in there. There were open garbage containers, fly tape hanging from the ceiling with a lot of dead flies on it over men's beds who had open bed sores.

ARONCZYK: The number of complaints kept going up. In 2015, a class-action lawsuit 13 was filed accusing Angola Prison of causing needless pain and suffering. And late last month, a court said the lawsuit could proceed. The prison's lawyers would not comment. So to understand how the hospital ward works from the inside, I contacted people who used to work there, like Sandy Netherland-Roberts.

SANDY NETHERLAND-ROBERTS: Medical-wise, budgetary-wise, the place gives awesome 14 care.

ARONCZYK: She was a paramedic and then later ran the prison hospice.

NETHERLAND-ROBERTS: Do I feel that there is better health care there than some people get in the outside world? One hundred percent.

ARONCZYK: Dr. Tobe Momah, who worked there for a year, said there are some inevitable 15 challenges, like treating prisoners serving long sentences.

TOBE MOMAH: They're going to be there for 40, 50 years, so they're going to develop cancer, hypertension, diabetes 16. So every time they have a need that is outside the scope of us five doctors, they have to leave the site.

ARONCZYK: And that is really expensive. And it's costing the prison even more since Louisiana overhauled 17 its safety net hospital system. Dr. Momah says, given all of these financial constraints 18, the medical staff was doing their best to care for the prison's 6,000-plus inmates.

MOMAH: Under the - I keep using those words under the circumstances.

ARONCZYK: I asked the lawyer Nick Trenticosta what he thought of Dr. Momah's assessment 19.

He felt like they were giving the best care they could give, given the circumstances.

TRENTICOSTA: Well, I don't know what he means by the circumstances. If by the circumstances means we don't have proper medication. We don't have proper equipment, but we do the best we can. That's like talking like a MASH 20 unit.

ARONCZYK: As resources have dried up, the prison is struggling to provide even basic care. The lawsuit demands more oversight 21, reforms and a bigger budget for medical care.

Now, are you feeling more, but you can't...

BRAUNER: No, I can feel, but I still can't move my legs.

ARONCZYK: Today, Francis Brauner uses a wheelchair to get around the medical facility where he's lived since leaving Angola Prison. He says that most of the men he was with on the chronic 22 care ward have passed away, and he's lucky.

BRAUNER: I mean, I'm not sentenced to death. And that's bottom line - I'm not sentenced to death.

ARONCZYK: He's grateful to have finished serving his time. And after years of waiting, he's just started treatment to help heal his wounds. For NPR News, I'm Amanda Aronczyk.

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GONYEA: This story was co-reported with Katie Rose Quandt from In These Times magazine and was made possible by a grant from the Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting.

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