“We have a lot of different cases against this company,” an attorney for the former inmate said. “We have a lot of work to do. These people are still doing business across the country. I want them gone. These people should not only be put out of business, they should be put in prison themselves.”
A federal judge has awarded $307.6 million to a former Michigan inmate who said that he served over two years in prison with a leaking colostomy bag while the state’s health provider refused to pay for surgery as a cut-cutting move.
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2019. In it, attorneys for former inmate Kohchise Jackson said that alleged indifference on the part of the defendants—including Corizon Health Inc. and Prime Healthcare Services—led Jackson to spend years living with an unnecessary colectomy bag, which was in such poor repair that it regularly leaked on him and his bunk.
The lawsuit claims that, in about 2016, Jackson developed a small hole in his colon. At the time, he was being held in St. Clair County Jail in Port Huron, where he was awaiting trial on charges of assault with a dangerous weapon and attempted unlawful imprisonment. The condition caused Jackson, who was paroled in 2019, to leak fecal matter into his bladder, leading to extreme pain, fever, and vomiting.
Jackson said that he visited the jail’s medical contractor at least four times between July and December 2016 to complain about his symptoms; he was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection and prescribed antibiotics.
He did not receive the correct diagnosis of “colovesical fistula” until December 2016, when he was taken to an emergency room. Doctors at the hospital performed surgery and gave Jackson a colon bag, which was purportedly intended as a temporary measure. A reversal of the procedure was tentatively scheduled for February 2017 but never happened because Prime Healthcare Service postponed the procedure “in order to pass the cost of surgery onto others.”
In March 2017, Jackson was transferred into the prison system after being convicted. Corizon Health also refused to reverse the colostomy because it was not “medically necessary.”
Jackson managed to reverse the procedure two weeks after he was paroled, in May 2019. The procedure was funded by Michigan’s taxpayer-funded Medicaid program. The decision by Corizon, attorneys say, left Jackson to “defecate uncontrollably into a bag taped to his stomach” for more than two years, causing him unnecessary pain, suffering, loss of personal dignity, and other damages.
“He wouldn’t get the supplies, the bag would pop open when he was trying to work out in the yard and spray feces all over his body and other prisoners,” said attorney Jonathon Marko, whose law firm, Marko Law, represented Jackson. “Imagine being in prison and treated like a leper because you have a bag of smelly feces hanging off your body.”
“They refuse[d] to approve his surgery because it costs too much money,” Marko said. “It cost $919.35, so he had to live with a bag, popping into this bag for years.”
ClickOnDetroit notes that, after the jury’s verdict was announced, Marko went so far as to call one of the defendants—Corizon—an “evil” company.
“The jury saw enough,” he said. “The jury watched all of it. And then they rendered their verdict.”
“We have a lot of different cases against this company,” Marko said. “We have a lot of work to do. These people are still doing business across the country. I want them gone. These people should not only be put out of business, they should be put in prison themselves.”
Sources
Ex-inmate sues Michigan officials for refusing to reverse colostomy
Jury awards former Michigan inmate $307.6M in prison health care suit
Join the conversation!