Medical Neglect Stalks Georgia Prisons

by Bruce A. Dixon

Arnold Porter was serious, and seriously worried. He was dizzy and short of breath, he told Dr. William Sightler, with a crushing, tightening sensation in his chest with pain shooting up once side of his neck. "Maybe I have a clogged artery. This is not my normal health," he told Dr. Sightler. "Please help. I need something fast done."

Private prisons, as well as publicly-run prisons with privatized medical care have built-in reasons to skimp on diagnostic testing and all kinds of care. Medical care costs money, and they're in business to make it, not to spend it.

Slow motion heart attacks, in which symptoms leading up to full cardiac arrest build and worsen gradually over weeks or months are quite common. Porter should have been a lucky man, being able to bring his heart attack symptoms into in a physician's office, except for one thing. Porter was a prisoner at Georgia's Wheeler Correctional facility, operated by the notorious Corrections Corporation of America. And William Slighter was their doctor, not his.

Read on....