In general, California prisons are cesspools of neglect. When Theresa Martinez was an inmate at the Central California Women’s Facility, prison health officials diagnosed her as having HIV. She says her mental health deteriorated as a result. Prison doctors also put her on a rigorous anti-HIV drug regimen for 10 years. Eventually, officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation transferred her to a state prison facility in Southern California. Once there, the facility’s health staffers urged Martinez to take another HIV test, even though she had assured them that she was infected with the virus. The results came back negative. They did the test again. It was negative, again. She didn’t have HIV. Martinez said she later learned that the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, where she and many other Sacramento women end up when they’re sentenced to prison, had a contract with a pharmaceutical company that sells HIV medication.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 20:16:20 +0000
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