Now, an exclusive interview with a woman that tested positive. Ms. V. made the startling report that there was NO MEDICAL ON SITE for the 29 minimum ladies who tested positive! Yes, no medical personnel at Piestawa. They had a room labeled medical, but it was never manned during the whole 14 day period.
This is her story from her diary.
“8-13-20 tested positive for COVID. They are here in white suits to take me to Pie. I’m feeling nauseated and have a huge headache. We are examined by a PA as soon as we arrive at Pie. The PA takes our vitals and listens to our chests. I fall into bed exhausted.
8-14-20 11:26am. There are 29 women here at Pie, all white except for one Hispanic and one Black. Isn’t this supposed to hit minorities worse? One girl just fainted. She looks really sick with this disease. The officers put her in a wheelchair and wait for medical.
12:02pm, still no medical people. OMG, it took an hour and a half for the nurse to come. All she did was take the inmate’s vitals and put her back in bed.
3:00pm, I myself am noticing that my breathing is more labored and harder to get.
7:46pm. None of us have received our meds! What is going on? The girl that fainted has not been seen again by a nurse.
8:17pm. Finally, here is a nurse for pill call, and to check that poor sick girl. I told the PA yesterday about my headache and nausea, and she assured me I’d get Tylenol and anti-nausea pills soon. No meds for me, the nurse just left. Maybe tomorrow?
8-15-20. That sick girl just fell over again as she was trying to heat up some soup by the microwave. I’m sure the outside world would not believe this, but I just heard an officer tell her that if she called an ICS again he would write her a ticket! What?! We are all here for COVID, how could he be so cruel?? Well, they called for medical anyway….wonder how long it will take THIS time. 2 hours—a new record!
I phoned my mom to tell her it took 2 hours for medical to respond to a sick COVID case! She is phoning Admin as I write this. Mom texted me that the prison won’t give her any info about me, on her own daughter! All mom got on the phone was “They’re all fine.”
One day runs into the next. It took 4 days to get my Tylenol and anti-nausea pills. They only check us once a day when they bring the meds. 29 sick COVID patients and that’s all we get.
I just had an interesting conversation with one of our guards. He confided that the DOC gets $40,000 per inmate from the Federal government for each of us that tested positive. And we only see a nurse once a day? Gee, someone is making money off us.
Some questions I have pondered in the 2 weeks I’ve been here. The man that took my swab said it would take 2-3 days to get results, then why did my test come back in less than 24 hours? Why didn’t they have medical persons on-site, with the nearest nurse at Maria? And why did it take at least an hour to summon a nurse? Maria is right next door to Pie. Did they think this through? We only saw a PA upon entering quarantine and again leaving…..twice? The rest of the time we made do with nurses. And another question….why didn’t they test us before we went back to the general population? All the PA did was listen to our chest, and DIDN’T EVEN CHECK OUR TEMPS. One guard said we should be grateful…. the medium and closed custody inmates had to endure those ancient cement boxes with no A/C.