New Report Blames Inadequate HIV
Medical Care for HIV Inmate Deaths
at Limestone Correctional Facility

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An infectious disease doctor has issued a 60-page supplemental report on the status of HIV medical care at the Limestone Correctional Facility outside of Huntsville, Alabama, a report reiterating earlier charges that substandard HIV/AIDS care at the facility has caused the deaths of dozens of HIVpositive inmates.

Infectious Disease Physician Stephen Tabot, MD, MPH, has issued two reports on HIV medical and living conditions at Limestone since August 2003, and in his most recent report, the doctor said, “one of the most egregious medical failures at Limestone is the number of preventable deaths. Patients continue to die because of the failure of the medical system.”

Thirty-eight HIV prisoners died between 1999 and 2002 at Limestone while five HIV positive inmates have died since October 2003. Tabot’s latest report, released on March 11, details the deaths of the five inmates, finding, for example, that one inmate literally suffocated in front of the medical staff without treatment while another lost more than 170 pounds without medication and a proper diet. A third HIV infected inmate with tuberculosis was placed in a dormitory with other inmates with HIV, exposing more than 200 inmates with compromised immune systems to the disease before he died, Talbot wrote.

The Alabama DOC mandatorily tests inmates for HIV, housing HIV positive male inmates at the Limestone Correctional Facility, which has been at the center of a federal lawsuit alleging substandard HIV/AIDS care and living conditions at the facility. The Southern Center for Human Rights filed the lawsuit in US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama against the Alabama DOC and the DOC’s medical contractor at the time, NaphCare. Tabot wrote both of his reports for the lawsuit on behalf of the Southern Center for Human Rights. His first report addressed the 38 deaths that occurred between 1999 and 2002 and it alleged that nearly all of 38 deaths were “preceded by a failure to provide proper medical care or treatment” while concluding that all of the deaths were caused by “preventable illnesses.”

Tabot’s latest report says many of the recommendations contained in the first report have not been implemented. “Despite describing this problem (preventable deaths) in the previous report, there remains no thorough, organized system of reviewing patient deaths.” The DOC, however, has moved HIV positive inmates into new two-person living units and out of a converted barn that formerly served as housing for HIV-infected inmates. It also replaced its previous medical contractor, NaphCare, with another private medicalprovider, Prison Health Services