Re: Interesting Case ...
From: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)
Thu Jul 26 08:44:02 2001
sounds like a chapter for "And The Band Played On, II"
the tragic saga continues.
art
At Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Dean Huffman wrote:
>
>..
>
>HIV-Positive Former Inmate Alleges Nevada Prison Denied Him Medication
>
>In a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court, Karl Kurfis, a former
>Clark County, Nev., Detention Center inmate who has AIDS, alleged that
>prison doctors denied him access to "life-saving" HIV medications during
>his seven months of incarceration, leaving him "near death," the Las Vegas
>Review-Journal reports. The $10 million lawsuit, which names the Las Vegas
>Metropolitan Police Department, Sheriff Jerry Keller, prison Medical Clinic
>Director Dr. Harvey Hoffman, Prison Health Services and EMSA Correctional
>Care, which operates the prison's clinic, was filed on Kurfis' behalf by
>John Costo, an attorney with the ACLU of Nevada. Costo said that his
>client has "only a few months left to live" due to an "incurable" brain
>disease that resulted from his "inability to take his AIDS cocktail" during
>his incarceration from February 2000 to September 2000. After Kurfis'
>arrest on burglary charges, his doctor informed the prison's medical staff
>of his condition and asked that Kurfis be allowed to continue his
>antiretroviral combination therapy, a regimen Costo called "standard
>medical protocol" for HIV/AIDS patients. "The jail is constitutionally
>required to provide those medications," Costo added. Kurfis began
>receiving his regular medications, but Hoffman "cut off" his supply,
>telling him he did not "deserve" the drugs because he was a drug
>addict. Costo acknowledged that Kurfis had "some substance abuse issues in
>the past," but said "that fact doesn't change the necessity for
>pharmaceutical intervention. It doesn't change the patient's need to be on
>HIV meds." Kurfis saw another physician several months later and was
>allowed to resume his medications, according to the lawsuit. But Hoffman
>ceased the medications again. The document asserted that Hoffman denied
>the drugs to Kurfis because he had either a "personal animus" against him
>or "wanted to save the high cost of the medications for the benefit of his
>employers." According to the lawsuit, during the seven-month period that
>he was incarcerated, Kurfis received medication for "no more than" 14 days,
>leaving him with "substantial, indeed mortal, injury" to his
>health. "Interruption of the drug regimen for even a short period of time
>can cause [HIV] to become resistant to the drugs being used, as well as to
>other drugs potentially available for treatment," the lawsuit
>stated. Kurfis filed the suit in "hopes that this lawsuit will serve as a
>mechanism to ensure that other people don't go through what he's had to
>endure," Costo said. The police department declined to comment on the
>pending litigation, and representatives for Keller and Hoffman could not be
>reached for comment. The lawsuit is one of "dozens" filed in the state
>against EMSA, which was acquired by Prison Health Services in January
>1999. "One wonders how many lawsuits like this it will take before people
>who are in positions of authority do the right thing so we won't have to
>deal with more tragedies," ACLU Nevada Executive Director Gary Peck said
>(Thevenot, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 7/24).
--
art fougner, md
A series of 1000 cases begins with but a single anecdote.
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