On Being Ill Behind Bars
Prison medical care is minimal for inmates.
By Kory Darty
I never thought I’d have to cut my bedsheet into pieces to use as toilet paper, but that’s what I had to do. Prisoners are issued one roll of toilet paper per week, but I went through an entire roll in a couple days. I was suffering from colitis, and although normally I could have bought toilet paper from other inmates, I couldn’t this time because the institution was on lockdown. We were confined to our cells 24 hours a day for an unknown length of time.
Being ill in prison brings a whole new meaning to the punishment of penitentiary. One time, I told a doctor I couldn’t sleep at night, and he prescribed me mirtazapine. I didn’t know this was a psychotropic medication, a “hot med” in prison slang, until they called me to see a psychiatrist. When I tried to stop taking the meds, the medical department insisted I keep taking them. I had to appeal their decision to get off the “hot meds.” The process took two years, during which time I had to keep taking the pills I didn’t need or want.
I also suffer from cystitis, which makes me urinate over sixty times a day. True to the prison doctors’ notion that sickness only exists in the inmates minds, I was prescribed various hot meds for this condition, too. I didn’t realize it until I felt regular, debilitating highs. I did some research and realized they were giving me psychotropic substances, again. When I told them I didn’t want any more hot meds because of the harsh side effects, they ignored me.
Now I’m afraid to take any kind of medication despite my severe health problems. There’s no cure for colitis or cystitis. I have to deal with their humiliating symptoms and inconvenience the guards several times a day use the restroom.
The saddest thing is that doctors won’t even help me anymore. Like the system, they are indifferent to the needs of inmates. The government in all its forms serves as the moral and ethical example for its citizens yet every day, it falls inexcusably short of being the model for the people it incarcerates.
It’s the small stuff that makes life in prison so torturous. I’ll never forget the morning that guards cut off the toilets before they conducted a search of the cells. We had no working toilets from five in the morning to six in the evening — thirteen hours! The toilet in my cell quickly became a health concern. My cellmate and I tried to force waste down by pouring water into the commode, but it didn’t work.
Conditions like this make life unbearably stressful and spark feelings of hopelessness. One time I got so sick, I thought I was going to die. I tried everything in my power to see a doctor, but things in prison are different than in the free world. It takes up to a week to see an indifferent nurse, who impatiently screens us to determine if we need to see the doctor. If the answer is affirmative, we have to wait for up to a month to see a physician. I suffered from my illness for more than thirty days. The suffering I went through still haunts me to this day.
People might think violence is the number-one cause of death in prison, but it is the life-threatening mental and physical health conditions of the prisoners that pose the greatest threat.
About the Author
Kory Darty is a certified mentor and has earned several other certificates in self-help and spiritual classes. He is currently completing his AA degree at Channel Islands Bible College. Although he has consistently claimed his innocence of the charges that led to his sentence, he takes full responsibility for contaminating his community with drugs and understands that if you break just one law, then you are guilty of breaking them all. His main goal is to continue to bridge the gap between hope and despair in communities from all walks of life and, as a faithful servant and follower of Lord Jesus Christ, to embody a symbol of hope in a world full of pain.
