Inmates’ families blast worsening situation at facility
Relatives say sick prisoners aren’t getting care
As the novel coronavirus continues to spread inside the Otero County Prison Facility on New Mexico’s southern border, family members of inmates are decrying the prison’s response to the outbreak, saying prisoners who have contracted the virus lack access to basic medical care.
At last count, 514 inmates at Otero — some state, some federal — had tested positive for the virus. Eight prisoners were in the hospital Thursday — one of them on a ventilator — and two inmates had died.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has blamed the federal government for the outbreak, saying it didn’t implement safeguards quickly enough in the part of the prison where federal inmates are held to prevent it from spreading to the prison’s state inmates.
“So far the communication with the White House has not been what I would call responsive about strategies that would allow us to get them to do COVID safe practices to minimize spread and risk,” she said Thursday.
The governor said she was “distressed” by the situation and found it challenging to deal with, adding, “Frankly we need to have another discussion about the for-profit prison industry period and for-profit detention in this country.”
Both parts of the Otero County Prison Facility are run by private prison operator Management and Training Corp., which has declined to make any of its officials available for interviews. But the company said in an email Thursday it has “been working diligently with our government partners since the pandemic began to implement [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and health department guidelines and recommendations.”
Family members of Otero County prisoners say their loved ones talk about lack of information and cleaning supplies, as well as about sick prisoners being left in solitary with little medical care to help them fight the symptoms of the disease.
Gina Mendoza of Roswell said her brother Daniel Mendoza, 46, is being held the Otero County Prison Facility on a probation violation related to a federal charge and has been seriously ill but isn’t getting the care he needs.
Gina Mendoza said her brother has underlying health conditions that increase the chances he could die of COVID-19, including asthma and hepatitis C.
She said he recently tested negative for the virus but a corrections officer told him he was positive. She said she believes her brother might have received a false result or was already recovering by the time he was tested.
“Mr. Mendoza started feeling sick a few weeks ago … to include difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, persistent cough, and a low grade fever,” Gina Mendoza wrote in a complaint she said she sent Monday to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Investigations Division.
Despite testing negative June 3, Gina Mendoza said, her brother has been placed in quarantine because of an elevated temperature and pulse rate.
“No medication was given to lower his pulse,” she wrote. “The only medication that the medical staff has given him at all has been Ibuprofen.”
Gina Mendoza patched a reporter in on a three-way call Thursday with Daniel Mendoza, who said he and other sick inmates being held in isolation “are just rotting back here.”
“I was better off in general population,” Daniel Mendoza said. “There, at least I have access to a [corrections officer] if I need one. Here, you don’t have access to anyone until someone comes back here no matter how much you scream or pound on the door.”
Gina Mendoza said she wrote to Otero County Prison warden Rick Martinez, Management and Training Corp. President Scott Marquardt and state Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel about “the need for transparency and adequate medical care” for her brother, but she has not heard back from any of them.
Spokespeople say the company that runs the Otero County Prison has been taking precautions, including suspending in-person visits, taking staffers’ temperature, quarantining new arrivals, isolating positive inmates, providing protective gear to employees who guard inmates with the virus, directing staff and inmates to wash their hands and avoid touching their faces, and “practicing social distancing to the greatest extent possible.”
With few variations, those are the same actions the New Mexico Corrections Department has said it is taking to quell the spread of the virus within prisons throughout the rest of the state.
Until recently, it seemed to be working.
Only three of the 10 other prisons that hold state inmates have reported positive cases among prisoners — the Northwest New Mexico Correctional Center in Grants, the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility in Los Lunas and the Penitentiary of New Mexico outside Santa Fe — and each say they’ve had only one inmate test positive.
But it appeared Thursday that number could rise at the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility, which is the focal point for prisoner intake and specialty treatment including geriatric and mental health care.
Sixty staff members were tested for the virus earlier this week and were “out on quarantine” pending their results after reported exposures at the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility, the Corrections Training Academy and the department’s administrative offices near Santa Fe, said Dirk Lee, statewide union president for the roughly 900 prison guards and support staff represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 18.
Corrections Department spokesman Eric Harrison confirmed an employee who was conducting a training at the academy Monday began to feel ill, was tested for the virus and was confirmed positive Tuesday.
Harrison said staff and inmates who may have had contact with the employee were tested, and “a group of staff members” had been directed to self-quarantine pending those results.
AFSCME filed a complaint May 1 with the state Labor Relations Board, saying the department would not provide the union with information about plans to address worker exposure or about plans to contain the spread if more cases were confirmed.
“When we initially heard about the first exposure at Central New Mexico Correctional Facility we requested extra precautions be taken with staff and extra protocols be put into place with staff who had any contact, in any way shape or form with that inmate,” Lee said in a text message Thursday. “Those protocols for precautions were never put in place and now everybody is at risk.”
Corrections Secretary Alisha Tafoya Lucero declined a request for an interview.
Harrison said in an email that wardens and leadership regularly hold video meetings to discuss courses of action in response to the virus, and union leaders have participated in those meetings.
Christine Gallegos wrote to The New Mexican, saying her boyfriend is imprisoned in Otero County and has tested positive for the virus, but “they are doing nothing for the inmates.”
“He said they did nothing to prevent them from getting sick and now that there’s this many of them sick nobody even goes into the pods where they are,” Gallegos wrote.
It had been a week since her boyfriend tested positive for the virus, Gallegos said in her email, and he still hadn’t seen a doctor or nurse. “Nobody comes in to check vitals or temperatures. They can’t get any Tylenol. Nothing, these people are suffering and nobody is saying anything about it!”
Reports about sick inmates suffering in solitary without medical care “are not true,” MTC spokesman Issa Arnita said in an email Thursday.
“Anyone requiring medical attention is evaluated and treated accordingly,” Arnita said. “CDC guidelines require us to isolate inmates or detainees if they have COVID-like symptoms to minimize the risk of the virus potentially spreading any further. During this time, the individual is tested for COVID-19 and is closely monitored and treated for their symptoms. If the test is positive, they are moved to a quarantined living dorm with other individuals who also have the virus. If the test is negative, they are returned to a regular housing unit. The purpose of the isolation rooms is to reduce the risk of spread and to be able to provide more one-on-one care to these individuals.”