Raymond Geddie, a case of medical neglect.
This is about what happened to my brother-in-law. It involves severe
medical neglect, cruel and unusual punishment in prison. You may delete it when
your are through reading it, but I myself know just
how many would NOT lose their lives if they just received the minimum amt. of
medical care when it is needed.
Hi Lee,
Enclosed is a picture of my brother-in-law, Raymond Geddie. (Please don't think
my whole family is a bunch of criminals!) This picture was taken at
Christmas, about 5 weeks ago.
When Raymond was 18 years, he fell from the roof of a two story house that he
was working on. He had a thoracic spinal cord injury, lost 50% function
of right arm and hand, and also his ability to do manual labor.
He started selling and dealing in pot (marijuana). It became very
lucrative for him, and he continued selling for
the next 15 years.
In November 1995, he and my sister,
He was eventually caught in March 1996. He went to court and got the
minimum required sentence for drug trafficking - 10
split 3 years.
He was out on two appeals and all of that for 5 years. He was finally
arrested in March 2001 and began his split 3 years.
When he had his accident years earlier, he had blood transfusions due to
internal injuries. He contracted Hepatitis C as a result. He was
told that he had it, but that he could live a normal life with it. He had
never had the first symptom from it.
In September 2001, he began to feel weak and nauseated a lot. He knew it
was futile to seek medical attention in the joint. This went on a
while, then he started having rectal bleeding.
It was later discovered that blood was pooling in his stomach, therefore the
nausea. He told family members that it was a hugh
amount of bleeding. He was treated with disgust by the so-called medical
personnel. He said he began to look like a ghost. Finally, when he
could not physically obey 'direct orders' to get out out of the steel slab
(bed), they took him to health care. He was finally taken to a real
hospital where he had to receive 7 pints of blood in short order. A man
has 14-16 Grams of hemoglobin in his blood count. Each gram represents one pint
of blood. So Raymond had lost 1/2 of his total whole blood volume!
That's hypovolemic shock. They let this near death state occur before
getting him even basic medical treatment and care. (I was in PRISON with
a mother who was charged and slammed in prison because of
'failure to seek medical attention for her child'). Wow!
After Raymond's return to prison, he never felt like his health was back up to
par. The food is not fit for human consumption, so his nutritional state
was not good. He slowly declined in health and received very little
medical attention. That went on for another year.
In October 2002, he had another bad bleeding episode. He was just in the
prison "death care" that time. He has two brothers who have
really stayed on top of things for Raymond. They went to the Judge in
October 2002 and asked for a release on medical parole, or for those reasons
above.
The Judge was hateful, and turned them away
saying, "I'm not going to let him out, he didn't get enough time as
it was." Very cold attitude.
Around Thanksgiving 2002 Raymond required another hospitalization at a real
hospital for a week. The doctors there were appalled at
the of medical care and attention he
had received at the joint for this serious, now terminal condition. The
doctor's, at this point, could do nothing for him. They gave him a
prognosis of 3 weeks to 3 months to live.
Again his brothers went to the Judge. He was haughty about it, but said,
I've got to see some medical records, I can't take your word that he's in
the shape you say he's in. They arranged for the records to be forwarded
to the judge.
On
This picture is the epitome of the last stages
of cirrhosis. He stomach is very bloated,
otherwise he is literally skin and bone.
He is at home with his sister now. Hospice has been called in on the case
to oversee his care. However he is on the list in
Sincerely,
Hi Lee,
Raymond died and was buried today at
© Copyright 2003
This is a sad story. Raymond's death is an
example of the big failure of our prison system. He should have been
released long ago and he may have lived longer. He is free now and he is
in the hearts of his loved ones. I like to think that he has escaped and
those who held him will never see him again. Raymond, we never met or
corresponded and I think that is my loss.
Lee
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