HARLAN RICHARDS
January 20,2014

Influenza In Prison

Flu season is upon us and it hits people in prison just
like it does those in the free world. There is on major
difference: How those who get sick are treated.

Up through the 1990s, DOC officials were very stingy with
flu vaccines. Only those prisoners who were deemed high risk
(very old or chronically ill) could get a flu shot. Every year
I would watch as hundreds of prisoners became ill as he virus
ran its course.

Then in the early 200s, the DOC began encouraging everyone
to get a flu shot. The incidence of sickness fell to only a
few isolated cases. The majority of prisoners did not get sick
during flu season. There are so many vaccinated prisoners,
the virus has a hard time spreading. I still encounter some
prisoners who claim they got sick from the vaccinations in past
years and now refuse the vaccine for that reason. But most
prisoners acknowledge the value of flu vaccines and get the
shot when it's offered.

The folks at Stanley have come up with a new way to control
flu outbreaks. If a prisoner requests medical assistance for
flu symptoms he and his cellmate are both confined to their
cell for 7 days. The nurses come around several times per day
to take their vital signs. Other than isolating them, I do
not believe they receive any other treatment.

I suppose this will cut down the likelihood of spreading
the virus to the rest of the prison population, but what about
the uninfected cellmate? He is trapped in a small room with
a sick person for 7 days. How could he not get sick as well?
I don't know how the rest of the world views it, but I consider
being stuck in a cell with another man where we have to eat, sleep
and shit together with no privacy, appalling.

If I'm an old guy who's vulnerable to influenza and I'm
stuck in a cell with a sick person, there's a good chance I
could die by being confined in close proximity with the virus.
What are these people thinking? They have plenty of empty cells
in their intake unit. If quarantine is necessary, move all
the sick prisoners to the intake to separate them from the well
prisoners.

Harlan Richards/page two/January 20,2014

I have discussed this with my current cellmate. Neither
one of us intends to contact Health Services if we get sick.
We don't want to be subjected to 7 days of punishment for getting
sick. I don't think we are the only ones who reached this deci-
sion. The nurses may have been able to target the first pri-
soners who reported the illness for punishment, but I suspect
the other prisoners are not going to make the same mistake.
It's not a conspiracy by the prisoners, it's common sense based
on personal observation.

I don't need a nurse to come around several times per day
to ask me how I'm feeling and take my temperature to see if
I'm still sick. They are not going to give me antiviral medi-
cation, order a special diet or try to ease the discomfort
caused by the sympotms, so what's the point of asking for 7
days of punishment?

Finally, I believe that any well prisoner who contracts
influenza as a result of being forcibly confined in a cell with
a sick prisoner has legal grounds for a lawsuit. It won't do
him much good if he dies from the virus but at least his family
can get compensated for his death.

Such is life in Stanley prison.