Arizona TB patient starts treatment in Denver

[Kacey]

Hmm... I understand not letting him roam if he's not following his drug regimen - but some of the things going on in the Maricopa County Jail (second article) seem out of line for someone not charged with a crime.

DENVER - Treatment is underway for multi-drug resistant TB patient Robert Daniels.

The 27-year-old Arizona man is hospitalized at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver.

<snip>

Daniels had been in the jail ward of Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix for going outside without a mask. A court ordered him transferred to National Jewish.

<snip>

While he is in Denver, Daniels will have a guard outside his room 24 hours a day. He also has to wear an ankle bracelet to keep tabs on his whereabouts.

Another report (bold added):

Since last summer, Daniels has been locked in a bare room on the fourth floor of the Maricopa County Hospital in Phoenix. It's a jail unit for criminals who need medical care. But Daniels has never been charged with a crime. He's there because he's been judged a menace to public health.

<snip>

Nurses watched him take his morning pills. They lectured him not to skip evening doses, taught him how to give himself intravenous medicine, and warned him to put on a face mask when he was in confined public spaces, like a store or bus.


Daniels admitted that he didn't.


But when public health workers asked him whether he wore a mask, he lied: "I already said that I was sorry. But that's not enough."


Daniels also didn't take a high-powered antibiotic when he was supposed to, leading to his becoming "extensively" drug resistant.


Now he feels trapped in a nightmare. He hasn't showered in months. He gets no exercise or fresh air.


"He's not seen the horizon, seen a tree, from his locked room for 10 months," said Dan Pochoda of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona. "He has a light on 24 hours. There's a video camera in the corner of the room that takes pictures of his every activity in that room 24/7. His mail is opened routinely.


"For most of the 10 months, he has not been allowed a TV or a telephone, and he has absolutely no activities during the day. It is taking, predictably, a terrible toll on his psyche. I believe it is not helpful for the physical treatments as well," Pochoda added.


There's no telling when, or if, treatment will make him non-contagious. Until that happens, he'll remain locked up.


The ACLU recently filed suit on Daniels' behalf. It doesn't seek to get him released — only to have him treated in more humane conditions.

 

[Ping898]

He brought some of this on himself, but it seems like he is being treated worst than most convicted criminals....and why the heck if he is not a convicted crinimal is his mail being opened?

 

[qi-tah]

A lot of the conditions he is being held under are highly detrimental to his treatment. Sounds like the authorities are going for the low-cost option to treat him, and hoping he either gets better or dies in a timely fashion. This is clearly inhumane. Hopefully compassion (not to mention sanity) will prevail in his case.