In the weeks before federal inmate Habib Solebo was found dead in his Chicago cell, his refusal to take his anti-seizure medication had failed to raise red flags among jail staff and faulty procedures ruined testing of his blood.
The morning Solebo's body was discovered in May 2007, the clinical director of the Metropolitan Correctional Center and the other staff physician were both on leave. The warden, who was away at a training conference, had not assigned anyone else to fill in, leaving the facility without a single staff member licensed to practice medicine in the U.S., according to court records.
On Tuesday, a federal judge overseeing a wrongful-death lawsuit awarded nearly $1 million in damages to Solebo's wife and young daughter, saying the lax medical care and sloppy protocols at the Loop detention center directly led to the 23-year-old's death while awaiting trial on drug charges.
The ruling was the latest setback for the MCC, a 28-story high-rise on West Van Buren Street that was embarrassed by the stunning nighttime escape last December of two inmates who rappelled down the side with a rope fashioned from bedsheets.
Medical care at the MCC has also been a frequent point of complaint by inmates and their attorneys. In issuing his 160-page opinion, Chief U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo, though, expressed optimism "that some of the breakdowns in administering vital medication and providing adequate medical care to inmates … have now been remedied" by a changeover in personnel.
"Certainly, it is this court's hope that the appropriate MCC officials will carefully study this opinion to ensure that these breakdowns do not reoccur in the future," Castillo wrote.
The judge also said Solebo bore some responsibility for his own death by refusing to take his pills, leading Castillo to cut the original amount of damages he awarded — $1.5 million — down a third to $920,000.
No comments:
Post a Comment