By Scott Sandlin
Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The family of an inmate who sued the state prison health services provider and three wardens claiming he failed to get treatment for colon cancer has settled the lawsuit filed on his behalf.
The inmate, Michael Crespin, died in July 2008 at age 50 while the litigation was pending in U.S. District Court.
The lawsuit continued with a personal representative for the man’s estate.
The amount of the settlement is confidential, and neither Crespin’s attorneys nor Wexford Health Sources Inc., a Pittsburgh-based corporation that describes itself as “the nation’s leading innovative correctional health care company,” had any comment on it.
A stipulated motion to dismiss the lawsuit was filed with the court Nov. 29.
In court documents, Wexford denied any wrongdoing, or that any actions by its employees constituted cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, as Crespin had claimed.
Judge William P. Johnson dismissed out as defendants three wardens who also had been named in the suit. Johnson found there was no evidence they knew Crespin was missing medical appointments and thus were entitled to immunity. That ruling is being appealed.
The New Mexico Corrections Department terminated the Wexford contract for inmate medical services effective June 30, 2007.
Crespin had been arrested on drug charges in December 2005 and had severe abdominal pain during his incarceration at the Metropolitan Detention Center diagnosed as colon cancer at the University of New Mexico Hospital.
He underwent surgery, after which he was left with a colostomy bag, and was prescribed medications and chemotherapy. He was also told he would probably need more surgery.
He was transferred to Central New Mexico Correctional Facility in March 2006 while his chemotherapy was going on.
The lawsuit alleged he was isolated from medical personnel at the facility even though the prison had a hospital.
“Despite Mr. Crespin’s repeated requests, and the requests of his treating physicians at UNMH, (prison) staff and Wexford essentially lost track of Mr. Crespin for purposes of his cancer treatment,” the lawsuit claimed. It said he missed 16 or more medical appointments.
Crespin told the Journal in a 2007 interview that he had tried to talk to people in the infirmary while he was in the receiving area of the prison but was put into general population.
“I couldn’t come out of my unit,” he told Journal investigative reporter Mike Gallager. “I had no access to anyone.”
UNMH medical personnel, including an oncologist, called the prison and got different explanations about why Crespin hadn’t kept his appointments — principally, a nurse shortage and too few correctional officers to handle the transportation, the complaint said.
According to the lawsuit, a nurse practitioner at UNMH contacted the prison doctor responsible for Crespin’s care and advised that “stopping Mr. Crespin’s treatments would result in his untimely death.” Crespin’s treating physician also had a similar conversation with the warden, the lawsuit says.
Crespin finally was transferred to the prison hospital and began getting chemo treatments in August 2006, but still missed many scheduled appointments due to what the lawsuit alleged was “deliberate indifference of the defendants.”
Another tumor was discovered in Crespin’s abdomen, and his UNMH doctors recommended that it be removed, but Wexford denied the treatment, and Crespin continued to miss critical appointments, the lawsuit said.
He eventually had the surgery, but the lawsuit said it was “only after investigative reporters had commenced review of Mr. Crespin’s case and multiple other and serious instances of Wexford’s deliberate indifference in providing medical services.”
Copyright 2010 Albuquerque Journal