![]() ![]() The BOP declined NPR's request for an interview and declined to comment on individual cases, but it wrote in a statement that the bureau is "committed to providing safe, effective healthcare that is clinically appropriate" and that it "makes a proactive effort to screen and identify disease at its earliest stages." "What took them so long to get to us?" "Are there preventable deaths happening in the BOP? The answer to that is clearly yes." "Deaths in custody should be rare events, given that this is such a controlled environment," says Michele Deitch, director of the University of Texas at Austin's Prison and Jail Innovation Lab. Sources NPR interviewed say all this leads to a troubling conclusion: Federal inmates - a group with a constitutional right to health care yet without the autonomy to access it on their own - are dying more often than they should. ![]() But NPR found that, in fact, the BOP's certification lapsed two years ago. The Bureau of Prisons claims to meet the same medical standards as any independent hospital, stating on its website that it is accredited by the nation's leading accreditation agency. What's more, current and former inmates and staff at Butner told NPR the prison has issues of its own, including delays in care and staffing shortages. But by the time prisoners access more advanced care, it's sometimes too late to do much more than palliative care. When an ailment like cancer is caught, the BOP often funnels these sick inmates to a place like Butner, where it is assumed they'll receive more specialized treatment. Too often, sources told NPR, federal prisons fail to treat serious illnesses fast enough. More than a dozen waited months or even years for treatment, including inmates with obviously concerning symptoms: unexplained bleeding, a suspicious lump, intense pain. The Butner Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, N.C., includes a federal medical center that has the Bureau of Prisons' largest cancer treatment facility.īut looking closer at the experiences of individual people, NPR found numerous accounts of inmates nationwide going without needed medical care. According to NPR's analysis, more people in BOP custody died of cancer than any other cause from 2009 to 2020. Inmates who need intensive medical care often end up at one of these hospitals, and FMC Butner is the bureau's largest cancer treatment facility. The complex includes a federal medical center (FMC), which is essentially a prison hospital. More deaths at Butner are to be expected. Ramirez was there in the months before his release. Although there are more than 120 federal prisons nationwide, a quarter of those deaths occurred in a single place: the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, North Carolina. Records obtained from the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) show at least 4,950 people died in its custody over roughly the past decade. NPR looked into the deaths of people like Ramirez, who died during or shortly after their time in federal prison. "I'm angry because it didn't have to get this far."Įleven days after that interview this past January, Ramirez died at age 41. That's the first place I would go - I'd go to the doctor. ![]() What if, he wondered, he could have seen a doctor right away when he first felt an inkling that something was wrong, instead of waiting more than a year for prison officials to take him to one? ![]()
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