977 CT inmates given hepatitis treatment as part of settlement
Robert Barfield recalled Wednesday all of the times the medical staff with the state Department of Correction continued to deny his request to receive life-saving drugs that could cure hepatitis C.
“I kept telling medical officials it’s not even an issue whether you are supposed to treat me,” the 53-year-old Barfield said in an interview. “Of course, they were supposed to treat me. I told them I would take them to court and it would cost the mm oney.
Six years ago, Barfield was serving a decadeslong sentence in Connecticut for an attempted murder in Nevada due to a prisoner exchange pact. He knew he had contracted hepatitis C, a viral infection that ravages the liver and could cause liver cancer or death if untreated. He also knew he was running out of time.
“They wanted to wait until I was almost critical to give me the treatment, that doesn’t make sense,” Barfield said. “They told me this is one of those things you just have to accept. But I told them, maybe what I’m supposed to do is change things.”
In July 2018, Barfield filed a federal lawsuit, claiming he was sick with hepatitis C, but he wasn’t receiving what had become the standard of care for the disease from the DOC, alleging the agency violated of his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Since then, Barfield is among the nearly 1,000 state inmates who were cured of the disease after being given proper treatment in part due to the efforts of his attorneys Kenneth Krayeske and DeVaughn Ward.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Shea on Tuesday approved a settlement agreement that includes $112,000 in legal fees for Barfield’s attorney to end the nearly four-year legal battle. Under the agreement, all inmates until Aug. 1 will be tested for hepatitis C and treated with direct-acting antiviral drugs, according to the standard of care for the disease.
It’s a victory that was hard fought and hard won, Krayeske said.
“I could die tomorrow and say that I have accomplished something,” Krayeske said Wednesday. “We forced the state of Connecticut to spend $40 million. We shouldn’t have had to do that.”
Barfield and hundreds of other inmates had hepatitis C while incarcerated but the lawsuit contended that they weren’t being given access to antiviral drugs, which had become the standard treatment, until they were near death.
“People were dying,” said Krayeske, who is representing one family in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the agency due to the lack of hepatitis C treatment.
As the litigation progressed, former DOC Commissioner Rollin Cook, who later resigned during the pandemic, agreed to give Barfield the drugs. Krayeske’s response was to add plaintiffs to avoid having the case thrown out.
When the state moved to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds Barfield was now receiving treatment, a federal judge denied the request in August 2019 and extended the litigation as a class action suit, representing all future and current inmates.
The next day, Cook issued a revised policy allowing all inmates to be
tested and treated. That didn’t end the lawsuit as the state had hoped, Krayeske said. But it did give 977 inmates a fighting chance at beating hepatitis C, the attorney said.
The cost has not been cheap. From August 2019 to October 2020, the DOC spent $9.9 million to test 14,000 inmates and treat 475 of the 1,398 who tested positive, figures released by the state in 2021 show.
The legislature voted in 2021 to accept the settlement, which required the state to test and treat all inmates until at least March 2022. The settlement funded an additional $20 million on top of the $10 million that had already been spent and $10 million in DOC funding that was put aside for hepatitis C testing and treatment as the lawsuit progressed.
As of Friday, 21,248 inmates have been tested since August 2019 with
2,123 testing positive for hepatitis C, court records show. Of those who tested positive, 977 have been given the antiviral drugs and are considered cured, including Barfield who is now living in Nevada after being released to parole in November 2021.
Attorney General William Tong’s office, which represented the DOC in the lawsuit, declined comment but instead referred to testimony submitted before the legislature in January 2021 encouraging
lawmakers to agree to the settlement.
“The Office of the Attorney General determined that settlement was the best avenue to resolve this case and believes this settlement to be a fair resolution,” the testimony said.
When the judge agreed to deny the state’s motion to dismiss, Barfield’s right to receive damages was also denied. Although the settlement only extends testing and treatment to August, Krayeske contended in court filings that inmates could file future litigation if they were denied the antiviral drugs.
Barfield, who is now looking for work and hoping to go into the legal profession in some fashion, walked away with a sense of pride that he was able to save lives through his fight to save his own.
“I feel great about that,” Barfield said. “At first when I went into this it was to get myself treatment. But when Ken painted the broader picture for me, I understood that this could help everyone.”
A judge approved a settlement in a lawsuit brought against Connecticut claiming inmates were not being properly treated for hepatitis C.