Re: From the Medics, Unhealthy Silence

From: kathleen (kathleen.dickson_at_snet.net)
Date: 03/18/05 

Date: 18 Mar 2005 01:38:54 -0800

No it ain't, it's totally true.

And you can wait a year for a teeth cleaning.
Everything I said about CT prisons is a FACT.

If yours is a family filled with law enforcement, perhaps
you could have your experts look at the Lyme racketeering
fraud, and also the MMR induced vaccine damage.

We *need* such courageous individuals fighting
for the rights of sick people who are not criminals.

Otherwise, chill out and stick to the facts.

Kathleen

WitchWirsen wrote:
> You are full of ***.
> Inmates get better medical care in the state of Missouri than working

> citizens who have committed no crimes.
>
> And coming from a family filled with law enforcement, and one LE of
over 50
> years, I resent your remarks about how they operate.
> It's hogwash.
>
>
> "kathleen" <kathleen.dickson@snet.net> wrote in message
> news:1111095050.955861.131750@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> These questions need to be asked about American
> prisons in general. They get notoriously bad healthcare
> and dental care. If you have a crown that needs to be
> finished, the dentists will offer you to have the tooth
> pulled.
>
> The inmates die of HIV and no one cares, 85% of the
> kitchen workers are HIV infected, and tuberculosis
> is not uncommon.
>
> More than half the prisoners have no teeth. The only
> medical care they get is Seroquel, mostly. If you are
> injured, the medical staff laughs, and gives no treatment.
>
> No one cares if inmates don't survive. Think about it.
> They don't care if you have doctor's orders or orders from
> the court to be treated for anything. They deny you medical
> care. Period.
>
> They don't report assaults to anyone. If one prisoner
> attacks another, they turn a blind eye, and record that it
> was a fight, even if it was not. They encourage the aggressors,
> because the guards enjoy these fights. The mentality behind
> that is that no one better the hell dare complain to any
> authorities about what goes on in the prisons, and if they
> think you might complain, they see to it, that you are
> not protected from the real psychos there.
>
> In other words, they use the other violent prisoners as
> an intimidation and punitive technique.
>
> This is not conjecture or hearsay.
>
> Kathleen
>
> georgia wrote:
> > Washington Post
> >
> > >From the Medics, Unhealthy Silence
> >
> > By Stephen N. Xenakis
> > Sunday, February 6, 2005; Page B04
> >
> > The recent confirmation hearings for attorney general nominee
Alberto
> > R. Gonzales and the trials of the soldiers accused of misconduct at
> Abu
> > Ghraib have once again brought to the fore questions about the use
of
> > torture in our war on terrorism. But one aspect that is never
> mentioned
> > -- one I believe is essential to consider -- are the actions or,
more
> > to the point, the apparent inaction of medical personnel at both
> > Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
> >
> > Detention facilities like these typically have fully staffed
clinics
> > with primary care physicians, nurses and a host of other support
> > personnel to treat American soldiers as well as detainees. Their
> common
> > duty -- from corpsmen with basic medical skills training to
> physicians
> > with leadership positions -- is to provide care according to high
> > standards of medical practice to all who need it and, of course, to
> > report any signs of physical or psychological abuse.
> >
> >
> > The Post's opinion and commentary section runs every Sunday.
> >
> > · Outlook Section
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> > As a physician holding the title of brigadier general by the time I
> > retired in 1998, I directed major medical support efforts during
the
> > 1991 Gulf War and have seen the Army leadership up close. So, as
the
> > scandals at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo in Cuba unfolded, I
> > wondered why we had heard so little from the medics. When faced
with
> > the twin pressures of performing their military duty and providing
> > treatment, did the staffs at these facilities turn a blind eye to
the
> > physical and mental torture inflicted on the prisoners, or perhaps
> even
> > collude with interrogators? There are few other explanations for
why
> > they didn't report suspicious findings from the examinations of the
> > detainees. Unless, of course, those reports were suppressed.
> >
> > I've also wondered whether the senior medical leadership of the
Army,
> > Navy and Air Force knew of the abuses -- and whether their reports
> > could have been concealed.
> >
> > My growing concern has been reinforced by an appalling case of glib
> > reasoning, in which the office of the deputy assistant secretary of
> > defense for health affairs, as reported in a recent issue of the
New
> > England Journal of Medicine, has taken the position that the
medical
> > personnel at these facilities had not breached the Hippocratic oath
> > because there was not a recognized doctor-patient relationship. The
> > NEJM reported that the deputy assistant secretary endorsed the view
> > that some of the medics supporting interrogators in Iraq and
> Guantanamo
> > were operating outside the bounds of the doctor-patient
relationship
> > and were thus not required to abide by accepted ethical guidelines.
> >
> > What precisely does this mean? That the prisoners were not being
> billed
> > by the medical personnel? That there were no neat files, none of
> those
> > signed privacy forms known as HIPAAs? Don't worry, the Defense
> > Department seems to be saying, being a military physician doesn't
> mean
> > that you need to stick to the time-honored maxim of "First, do no
> > harm"?
> >
> > Indeed, the same article noted that the office contended that the
> > legitimate objective of fighting terrorism trumps the ethical
> > responsibility of the healing practitioner. In other words, "the
ends
> > justify the means": A few brutalized prisoners is a small price to
> pay
> > for protecting the citizens of the United States.
> >
> > According to this line of reasoning, military medical personnel
> should
> > put a higher priority on fighting the war against terrorism than on
> > abiding by the recognized ethical and moral principles of their
> > profession. Moreover, no worries about potential malpractice suits
> need
> > cloud their day; they can feel protected and relieved of the duty
to
> > exercise personal and individual responsibility.
> >
> > That's not how I was trained. I attended both college and medical
> > school on Army scholarships during the turbulent years of Vietnam
and
> > the My Lai massacre, with cynicism over the practices in our
military
> > echoing in my ears. Fifteen years later, in 1989 and 1990, I
attended
> > the Army War College as a medical corps colonel. At all these
> > institutions, clear parameters for conduct were laid out. The war
> > colleges teach senior officers -- future generals and admirals --
> that
> > commanders are responsible for the ethical and moral climate of
their
> > units. They are also responsible for what the men and women who
serve
> > under them do and don't do.
> >
> > There is no escaping the fact that responsibility for the conduct
of
> > the medics at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib rests with the senior
> > leadership of the medical departments. This leadership faced tough
> > questions from the outset of operations in both Afghanistan and
Iraq
> > about how medics were supposed to treat detainees; the burden of
> > leadership is to ensure that high moral and ethical practices are
> > maintained in even the most demanding situations.
> >
> > But there is not much evidence to show that the Defense Department
> > wrote out guidelines for adherence to the high standards. In fact,
> > there is only evidence to the contrary: There are few, if any,
> reports
> > from medics about detainee abuse and there is no sign of inquiries
or
> > reviews of the policies and conduct of the medical teams at those
> > facilities. But documents of testimony taken during investigation
> into
> > the abuses at Abu Ghraib recently released under the Freedom of
> > Information Act and posted on the Web sites of the American Civil
> > Liberties Union and Center for Public Integrity suggest that
medical
> > personnel were aware of abuses, may have witnessed some and may
even
> > have advised interrogators on the individual medical conditions of
> the
> > prisoners and their vulnerabilities to specific stresses that could
> > induce them to disclose valuable intelligence -- actions that may
> have
> > bordered on torture.
> >
> > With disturbing echoes of unsavory regimes in history, medics
> abdicated
> > their responsibilities toward the detainees, their patients,
instead
> of
> > making interrogations more humane, more in keeping with
international
> > standards of decency.
> >
> > Unlike soldiers, doctors have a duty to patients as well as
country.
> > That is what separates U.S. military physicians from the German
> doctors
> > who aided the Nazis in concentration camps or, in perhaps a closer
> > parallel, the South African prison doctors who examined
> anti-apartheid
> > leader Steve Biko (a fellow physician no less), filed incomplete
> > reports, deferred to police interrogators and failed to stop the
> brutal
> > treatment that ended in Biko's death.
> >
> > But there is an even bigger failure to be reckoned with. These are
> > times when the country deserves great leadership, and that kind of
> > leadership anticipates the toughest problems. Military leaders
should
> > first have asked the hard questions about the ethical parameters
> > guiding the conduct of medics and focused on the policies that
> governed
> > that conduct: What is the historical precedent; what are the best
> ideas
> > about the role of medics in this war; and what are the long-term
> > consequences of their actions? For these leaders to speak up as the
> > scandals were investigated would have taken great courage --
generals
> > and admirals would have been forced to retire.
> >
> > But heroism is not just the stuff of the battlefield. Patients
trust
> > doctors, nurses and medics because they expect them to do what is
> right
> > -- to put the needs of others over their own. Nations expect their
> > generals to be bold and to take risks -- and to show moral courage.
> >
> > Something doesn't smell right here, and it just may be an abscess
of
> > ethical lapses. While there can be long and learned legal
discussions
> > about the role of torture during wartime, the medical aspect of
these
> > discussions should be very brief: No doctor -- and no military
> medical
> > leader -- should participate in torture in any way. Either by
> advising
> > interrogators of prisoners' vulnerabilities or by simply doing
> nothing,
> > they did participate. And that says more about the problems of
> military
> > leadership than any memo on legal protections.
> >
> > Author's e-mail: snxen@aol.com
> >
> > Stephen N. Xenakis, a retired brigadier general with the U.S. Army,
> now
> > works as a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Psychiatric
> > Institute of Washington.
> >
> >
> > © 2005 The Washington Post Company

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