‘THERE’S NO EXCUSE’
Inmate says she was handcuffed, strip searched after miscarriage
Alyssa Bennett says there was no ambulance after she suffered a miscarriage in her Ottawa jail cell, just a strip search, a pair of handcuffs and a ride to the hospital alone in the back of a prisoner transport van.
That was after the 28-year-old watched a nurse flush the toilet that contained the fetal remains, she says.
“I was crying and I was a little bit hysterical because, in my eyes, I’m looking in the toilet and seeing my child,” said Bennett, who spoke publicly Friday for the first time since her miscarriage at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre on Jan. 25.
Bennett had been in the jail after failing to appear to serve an intermittent sentence on weekends. She had also stolen a bottle of Grey Goose vodka and $227 worth of items from a Walmart.
Bennett’s case garnered widespread attention after a judge described the treatment she suffered inside the jail as “nightmarish and inhumane.” A court heard about how the woman, who was 13 weeks pregnant, failed to receive medical treatment before the miscarriage, despite two weeks of bleeding and repeated attempts by her defence lawyer, social worker, Elizabeth Fry Society worker and even a Crown attorney to get her to a hospital.
The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services has since launched an investigation into her treatment. It wouldn’t comment Friday on the investigation or on Bennett’s allegations about the treatment she received.
Bennett said that from the moment she arrived at the jail within a day or two of her arrest on Jan. 11, she told staff she was concerned about her condition.
“I made them aware I was not only pregnant, that I was bleeding and it was a condition that I was worried about,” Bennett said.
Bennett said the jail did take her to hospital on Jan. 16, and tests determined there was no heartbeat, that the pregnancy wasn’t viable and that she would need to schedule a medical procedure to remove tissue from her uterus.
However, it is unclear whether anyone ever scheduled an appointment.
Bennett said she was told an appointment had been scheduled shortly after learning the pregnancy wasn’t viable; however, an email obtained by the Citizen from the health-care manager to the jail social worker indicates that, as of Jan. 24 — eight days after the hospital visit — no appointment had yet been made. Bennett said she had also been told that nothing would be addressed until her condition worsened.
By then, Bennett said, she was experiencing increasingly severe cramping.
“I told them, ‘I am starting to cramp really bad, and I need to get looked at.’ ”
The morning of the miscarriage, she said, the head of the nursing department assured her he would take care of her in what she described as a religious and paternalistic manner. By this time, she had been in the jail nearly two weeks.
“He told me that, at the end of the day, this is just a job to him, that he has someone else to answer to and that is God and that he doesn’t want to have to answer to God and say why he didn’t give this lady this proper treatment,” she said.
The head of the nursing department also told her, “He is a married man and he has children, so women’s needs are very, very important to him,” said Bennett, who ultimately was returned to her cell.
“I don’t feel like he would let his wife or his daughter suffer for that long,” Bennett said.
Bennett said she was in cell No. 5 in the women’s unit of the jail when she started to miscarry. The room is just big enough for two bunks, a toilet, a sink and a small metal desk.
“I started yelling for an officer to come, for a CO to come. I had my roommate bang on the cell and a girl across from her started banging because we were like, ‘We need help down here, we need help,’ ” said Bennett, who said she felt herself passing something into the toilet. “No one’s coming.”
Bennett said it took at least 10 minutes for someone to arrive. It was a male correctional officer.
“My roommate is doing most of the banging because I couldn’t stand up, I was bleeding so bad,” she said. “I was kind of starting to cry.”
Bennett said after help arrived she was being comforted by her cellmate when a nurse flushed the toilet. She was then taken to the admitting and discharge area, she said, where she was strip searched and handcuffed before being sent to hospital in the prisoner van. She noticed paramedics were already at the jail when she left, but apparently it was for a male inmate with chest pains, she said.
Bennett then spent a night at The Ottawa Hospital’s General campus before receiving the procedure recommended by a doctor nine days earlier.
Bennett said the strip search was the only physical examination she received while at the jail. She said she only met with a doctor three times; twice to discuss medication, and once to fill out a form for the medical procedure she required.
“They never checked the bleeding, never checked the pads,” Bennett said. “You feel helpless. I can’t go and call 911 myself. I’d get sent to the hole if I dialed 911 myself.”
When she left the hospital, she was again handcuffed. This time they also shackled her, she said.
Bennett — whose 2 1/2-year-old son was killed in a crash with an impaired driver and whose parents have both died — said she started using drugs to cope with the loss. She survives on $600 a month in welfare.
She said the treatment she received left her feeling angry.
“I’m a human being and I deserve to be treated better than that. It’s inexcusable, from my point of view. There’s no excuse,” said Bennett, who wiped away tears. “It’s like you’re a criminal and so you don’t deserve to get treated like a human being.”
I was crying and I was a little bit hysterical because, in my eyes, I’m looking in the toilet and seeing my child ... You feel helpless.