Detainees continue to miss medical appointments, DOC official says
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A Department of Correction official said that the agency has not been producing detainees for medical appointments at a rate that satisfies a recent court order in a January affidavit. AP file photo by Seth Wenig
By Jacob Kaye
A Rikers Island official in charge of operations at the jail complex told a Bronx judge last month that detainees have continued to be deprived of medical services despite a recent court order.
DOC Bureau Chief of Facility Operations Ada Pressley told a Bronx County judge that incarcerated individuals at Rikers Island, the troubled jail complex that saw more deaths last year than any year dating back to 2013, haven’t been brought to medical facilities at a rate that Pressley believes is in compliance with a December court order made by Bronx Judge Elizabeth Taylor.
In December, around 90 percent of detainees were taken to sick call and 72 percent of detainees were taken to the clinic, according to Pressley.
“In my opinion, I believe this rate of production does not constitute substantial compliance with the pertinent directives to provide timely access to the clinics,” Pressley said in an affidavit.
Taylor’s order stems from a class action lawsuit in which former and current detainees alleged that they were denied medical services despite demonstrating a need for them.
The judges December order demanded the Department of Correction provide incarcerated people with access to sick call on weekdays and make it available at least five days a week within 24 hours of it being requested, provide security to allow incarcerated people to move to and from health facilities within the jails and to not prohibit or delay detainees’ access to medical care.
Attorneys, advocates, detainees and former DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi blamed the inability to produce incarcerated people for medical appointments on a widespread correctional officer staffing shortage. In August of last year, around 100 officers were going AWOL each day, in addition to around 1,400 officers out on sick leave and over 1,160 under medical monitoring and unable to work with incarcerated people.
Incarcerated people cannot go to medical facilities on their own and must be taken by an escort. In December, around 1,060 of the 7,070 missed medical appointments were missed because the Department of Correction could not provide an escort, according to the DOC. The number of missed medical appointments was higher in December than it was in the months preceding the court order, according to DOC data.
Though staffing numbers began to improve in the fourth quarter of last year – federal monitor Steve J. Martin noted in his December Nunez Report that AWOL’s had declined by 81 percent – the issues stemming from the shortage continued to cause interruption in medical services, according to Pressley, though she blamed the shortage on the vaccine mandate for officers.
“The months of December (and January) are periods in which significant numbers of staff schedule their vacations around the holidays,” Pressley said. “In addition, as we are all aware, beginning around the summer of 2021, the Department has experienced exceptional stafficing difficulties due to reasons associated with the COVID-19 pandemic including but not limited to staff who are considered “Leave Without Pay” due to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.”
“Most recently, with the advent of the highly contagious and transmissible Omicron Variant, we experienced another spike in absenteeism beginning in December of 2021, an even greater number of staff has been confined to their homes, which has exacerbated the current staffing issues,” she added.
Like all corners of the city, Rikers Island saw a massive spike in COVID cases around the holidays among both detainees and officers. In January, DOC Commissioner Louis Molina told the Board of Correction that 2,300 of the agency’s nearly 9,000 staff members were out sick, many with COVID. On Dec. 31, around 513 detainees had active COVID-19 cases – a number that has since dropped to 30, as of Jan. 26.
Attorneys with the Legal Aid Society and their clients who brought the original lawsuit say the lack of medical care can prove perilous for detainees who are brought to Rikers with medical issues and those who develop issues while incarcerated alike.
Joseph Agnew, one of the original complainants, said he was brought to Rikers in September 2021 after being hit by a police car during his arrest. Before formally being admitted to the jail, Agnew was held in handcuffs on a bus for 14 hours and was denied access to food, water, a bathroom and medical attention, the lawsuit claims.
Agnew also alleges his asthma was complicated after the intake cell he was held in was sprayed with pepper spray multiple times. After being moved to permanent housing, Agnew claims he was denied medical attention despite making multiple calls to Correctional Health Services.
In response to Pressley’s affidavit, Legal Aid filed a motion for contempt, claiming that the city has not implemented or complied with Taylor’s December orders.
“Egregiously, [the DOC’s] practice of denying people access to medical care intensified and the access problems worsened substantially after the Court’s Order,” the motion reads. “Yet [the DOC] concedes it has repeatedly violated the Order, allowing the suffering to continue. DOC’s flagrant disregard for the law and this Court’s Order cannot continue without grave and deadly harm to those who are entrusted to DOC’s care.”
The motion asks the court to fine the DOC $250 for each instance where a lack of escort resulted in a missed medical appointment.
Philip Desgranges, a supervising attorney in Legal Aid’s Special Litigation Unit said his hope is that the contempt motion begins to hold the DOC accountable.
“There's repercussions,” Desgranes said. “These accruing fines will have a hefty cost on the city and on the Department of Corrections if they continue to day by day not provide such a basic service like access to health care so people can go in and leave Rikers healthy.”
“Unfortunately, what we've heard over the last year or so, is too many cases of people dying, too many cases of people suffering and in pain because they just can't see a doctor, they can't see a nurse to get basic medical treatment,” Desgranes added.
A DOC spokesperson told the Eagle that “[e]nsuring that people in our custody receive timely medical [care] always has been a priority for the department.”
A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department said the agency was “reviewing the motion.”
On Monday, the DOC announced that around 1,000 officers had returned to work from sick leave in January. Though 1,500 uniformed personnel remain out sick, the influx of officers allowed the agency to initiate the transfer of 83 of the 118 women and LGBTQI+ detainees who were sent to a prison upstate during the staffing crisis.
The transfers are expected to begin this week and will see around 20 women per day move back to Rikers according to the DOC. The remaining 35 women who were transferred in the fall have either been released or posted bail, according to a DOC spokesperson.
