Brickbat: Multiple Failures

A New York City Board of Corrections report found that Rikers Island detention officers repeatedly blocked medical staff from seeing a sick inmate who later died of multiple organ failure. While serving a sentence for assault, 23-year-old Charizma Jones appeared unable to stand. An officer called for medical help, but when none came, other inmates applied ice and held her when she passed out. When medical staff still did not show up, the inmates “became disruptive and refused to comply with staff orders,” the report found, triggering an emergency alarm that finally resulted in Jones being transferred to the infirmary, where she was treated for possible scarlet fever. But even as she vomited, detention officers blocked medical staff from checking her vital signs at least six times, citing unspecified security reasons. After two days in the jail infirmary, Jones was taken to a hospital with a high fever, a rash, and signs of possible liver failure. Weeks later, she died at the hospital of “multiorgan failure.”

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