Transgender Pa. prison inmate sues Corrections Dept., claiming they were denied proper healthcare

February 12, 2020 | Pennsylvania Capital-Star | Elizabeth Hardison

A transgender prisoner at a women’s prison in northwestern Pennsylvania is suing the state Department of Corrections, saying that bureaucratic hurdles, inadequate medical training, and invasions of privacy put them on a path to depression and self-mutilation.

The lawsuit, filed last month in the U.S. District Court for Pennsylvania’s Western District in Pittsburgh, seeks monetary damages and immediate medical care and housing accommodations for the prisoner, who was identified at birth as a woman, but does not identify as male or female now, according to court documents. 

It also names a dozen corrections employees as defendants, including Corrections Secretary John Wetzel and prison psychologists, doctors and staff.

Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said on Tuesday that the agency does not comment on litigation.

The prisoner, identified in court filings by the pseudonym Sam Doe, is being represented by the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, a statewide legal aid organization that litigates prisoner civil rights claims. 

The attorneys say the prison’s failure to properly administer Doe’s testosterone treatment caused Doe significant anguish and physical harm. That violated Doe’s rights under the eighth amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which outlaws cruel and unusual punishment for prisoners, they said.

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Press Release: PA Institutional Law Project Files Lawsuit Against the PA DOC for Denying Transgender Medical Care and Disclosing Client’s Gender Identity to Other Prisoners Without Consent.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 10, 2020

Press contact:
Rebecca Susman, Communications Manager, Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project Email: rsusman@pailp.org
Phone: 412-254-4771

ERIE, PA – The Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project (PILP) filed a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC) on behalf of Sam Doe (they/them), a non- binary person incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Cambridge Springs, one of two women’s state prisons in Pennsylvania. Doe has been denied necessary medical care, including access to a doctor specializing in transgender health and gender affirming surgery, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Despite numerous requests, Doe has been denied vital medical care endorsed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s Standards of Care. Due to the lack of on-site medical expertise for treating transgender and non-binary individuals, Doe has been required to repeatedly educate the medical staff on these nationally recognized guidelines. The failure of the PA DOC to provide consistent hormone therapy, necessary transition care, and accommodations for Doe’s safety and social transition lead to a serious act of self-harm.

Doe has been unable to obtain further essential medical care as PA DOC policy requires that treatment decisions can only be authorized by a state-wide administrative committee, located a five hour drive from Cambridge Springs in Mechanicsburg, PA. This committee does not include any medical professionals directly involved in Doe’s care.

“Rather than providing Doe with access to knowledgeable specialists, and training the on-site providers for this crucial and life-saving medical need, PA DOC has decided to single out transgender healthcare for a lengthy administrative process that disregards medical judgement,” said Alexandra Morgan-Kurtz, PILP Managing Attorney, “Healthcare should not be decided by an administrative committee.”

In addition to advocating for medical care, PILP seeks to ensure that Doe has access to safe housing and to other necessary accommodations. Previously, PA DOC staff severely jeopardized Doe’s safety when they revealed Doe’s gender identity and history of self-harm. This instigated harassment and threats of violence causing Doe to fear even walking to meals alone. To this day, Doe continues to experience severe psychological distress as a result of being outed without their consent and PA DOC’s refusal to provide them with adequate medical care.

“Prisons have a duty to provide essential medical care and safe accommodations to all incarcerated people, regardless of gender identity. Unfortunately, the PA Department of Corrections and its staff’s bureaucratic hurdles and severe violations of privacy have led to physical and mental harm and caused unnecessary suffering,” stated PILP Interim Executive Director Su Ming Yeh.

The Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project is representing Sam Doe in the case Doe v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, et al., 1:20-cv-0023 (W.D. Pa.).

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Read the press release pdf here
Case Documents:
Complaint

‘You’re Going to Let Me Die From This’: Prisoners Fight to Access a Hepatitis-C Cure

January 25, 2019 | The Nation | Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

On May 15, 2017, after serving 37 years, David Maldonado was released from prison. He had been sentenced to life for a murder he committed when he was 16. But for Maldonado, getting out was about more than freedom; his release might have also saved his life. In 1997, Maldonado was diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C—a disease, now curable, that the state of Pennsylvania had refused to treat. “Society really didn’t care whether I lived or died,” he told me recently.

Hepatitis C is caused by a virus that infects and inflames the liver; it’s spread through blood, most often via intravenous drug use. Between 75 and 85 percent of those infected with hepatitis C develop chronic hepatitis C, which can lead to liver scarring, liver cancer, cirrhosis, and death. It’s the most deadly infectious disease in the United States, killing around 20,000 people a year—more than the next 60 infectious diseases combined.

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PRESS RELEASE: Court rules Incarcerated Woman’s Lawsuit Challenging Deprivation of Pain Medication and Mobility Devices May Proceed.

Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project and Abolitionist Law Center

For Immediate Release

December 31, 2018

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA. On Friday, The United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania rejected motions to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) and medical staff violated the rights of an incarcerated woman who is disabled. The case is being litigated by the Abolitionist Law Center (ALC) and the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project (PILP) on behalf of Ms. Tracey Nadirah Shaw, who is currently imprisoned at State Correctional Institution at Cambridge Springs (SCI Cambridge Springs). Ms. Shaw brought the lawsuit after the DOC and medical staff violated her rights under the Eighth Amendment and ignored protections guaranteed by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act by denying her necessary pain medication and mobility accommodations, including a wheelchair, for over two years.

Ms. Shaw suffers from chronic medical conditions that cause intense neuropathic pain in her back and legs. For years, she was prescribed medication by DOC staff that stabilized her pain and allowed her to engage in daily tasks, including janitorial labor. In 2015, without the benefit of an examination or consultation, medical staff terminated Ms. Shaw’s effective pain management prescription, which resulted in debilitating pain and substantial reduction in her mobility. Ms. Shaw began to depend on additional assistive devices and accommodations to attempt to navigate life at SCI-Cambridge Springs. However, DOC staff took away her wheelchair, depriving her of the ability to travel the extended distances to educational classes, worship programs, and the dining hall. The DOC then used her worsening medical condition to temporarily remove her from her janitorial duties, resulting in a loss of essential income.

Ms. Shaw lost over twenty pounds because she was not able to physically walk to the cafeteria to get her meals and eventually, she suffered a broken leg requiring surgery and the insertion of six screws when she fell trying to walk with the absence of a wheelchair.

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5,000 inmates with Hepatitis C sued Pa. prisons. Now, they’re on their way to getting treatment

November 20, 2018 | Samantha Melamed | The Philadelphia Inquirer

In 2013, a cure for hepatitis C — a chronic viral infection that, if untreated, can lead to fatal liver disease — was brought to market. But who would get the $100,000 lifesaving treatment? That's been a subject of political and legal battles ever since.

In May 2017, the Wolf administration announced that Pennsylvania would expand Medicaid coverage of the treatment to anyone with hepatitis C, instead of treating only those with signs of liver damage.

Now, through a legal settlement filed for approval Monday in federal court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, approximately 5,000 incarcerated Pennsylvanians who have hepatitis C would also have access to direct-acting antiviral drugs, which are effective in about 95 percent of cases.

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PRESS RELEASE: Proposed Landmark Settlement Re: Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C

November 19, 2018 | PA Institutional Law Project and David Rudovsky, Esq.

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PROPOSED LANDMARK SETTLEMENT ON ACCESS TO MEDICAL TREATMENT WOULD PROVIDE HIGHLY EFFECTIVE MEDICAL TREATMENT FOR PRISONERS WITH CHRONIC HEPATITIS C IN THE PENNSYLVANIA DOC

Contacts:
David Rudovsky, Esq.: 215-925-4400, drudovsky@klrawphila.com
Su Ming Yeh, Esq. (PA Institutional Law Project): 215-925-2966, smyeh@pailp.org

Philadelphia, PA, November 19, 2018:

Plaintiffs’ counsel announced a proposed landmark settlement in a class action lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections that would provide much-needed medical treatment for thousands of prisoners with Chronic Hepatitis C.

“Chronic Hepatitis C is the most lethal of all viral illnesses in the United States. In its early stages, it can cause painful and debilitating conditions of fatigue; muscle, joint, and bone pain; and depression. Left untreated, the virus will eventually cause liver failure, high risks of liver cancer, and death. ‘The new DAA treatment is highly effective in curing the disease with a simple regimen of pills and without serious side effects,’ explained Su Ming Yeh, Deputy Director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project. ‘The health of thousands of prisoners will be improved now that they will have access to this potentially life-saving medication.’”

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Chimenti Hepatitis C Class Action Settlement

November 19, 2018 | Settlement Agreement and General Release

Please click HERE to access the Class Action Settlement in Salvatore Chimenti, et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, et.al., regarding access to highly effective medication for treatment of chronic Hepatitis C.

‘This is not ordinary’: 5 inmate suicides in 3 months at Graterford

April 5, 2018 | Nina Feldman | WHYY Public Radio

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections is under pressure to act after five inmates at Graterford Prison have died by suicide in the last three months.

“This is not ordinary, this many incidents and this short a time,” said Pennsylvania DOC Secretary John Wetzel.

The latest inmate, 58-year-old Roland Alston, died by suicide last week at the Montgomery County facility where Alston had been serving a life sentence since 1984.

Read more and listen to the radio piece here →