The final time Lesley Overfield went to see her son in jail, every part had modified.
She visited El Dorado County Jail each two weeks or so, and when she’d beforehand seen him, he’d been effective, strolling and speaking and looking out wholesome.
However on April 22, when she visited her 38-year-old, HIV-positive son on the facility close to Lake Tahoe and the Nevada border, he was fully completely different.
Nicholas Overfield was in a wheelchair. He was unable to carry the telephone to speak along with his mom from behind the glass partition within the visiting room. Then he leaned ahead and put his head down on the desk. The 2 by no means spoke on that go to.
Nicholas Overfield died from not getting his wanted HIV drugs whereas in custody, a lawsuit claims.
(Overfield household)
Two months later, he was useless of a viral an infection, varicella zoster virus encephalitis, which is among the many situations related to AIDS, in accordance with his household’s legal professional, Ty Clarke. Medical information present that Overfield was not administered his HIV antiretroviral drugs whereas in jail. Now, Lesley Overfield is suing over her son’s demise.
“I’m very disenchanted, very indignant. I would really like justice for my son,” she mentioned. “I would really like some accountability for his or her actions. Why did my son lay there in jail for 2 weeks with nobody addressing it?”
Nicholas Overfield was arrested in February 2022 after failing to look for a court docket date, in accordance with the lawsuit his mom filed in federal court docket for the Jap District of California final week. Clarke didn’t present info on Overfield’s underlying legal case.
.
When he was arrested, Overfield and his mom made certain to present cops his treatment and knowledgeable them of his HIV-positive standing in order that he may proceed to be handled in jail.
However he by no means obtained the medicine he wanted, in accordance with the lawsuit.
As a substitute, the jail failed to offer the treatment your entire time he was detained, his lawyer mentioned. Throughout earlier visits along with his mom, Overfield had not talked about that he wasn’t getting his treatment, she mentioned.
The day after she visited her son, Lesley Overfield obtained on the telephone with a nurse on the jail about his situation. That very same day, he was taken to a neighborhood hospital for medical remedy, the lawsuit mentioned.
“Defendants had been both unaware of or, worse, ignoring the severity of Nick’s common well being and medical situation till they had been compelled to confront these issues by his mom,” the lawsuit reads.
A nurse on the hospital spoke with a nurse on the jail.
“[Overfield] has not had entry to his HIV treatment since taken into custody in February,” the nurse wrote in medical information reviewed by The Instances.
After a stint within the hospital, he was moved into hospice and died in June 2022.
“In a tragic and inevitable flip of occasions, Nick’s well being had deteriorated at an alarming price throughout and because of his detention at El Dorado County Jail,” wrote Clarke within the lawsuit. “Regardless of having Nick’s prescribed HIV treatment, and regardless of having been instructed [by] Nick upon his arrest that he wanted his HIV treatment to maintain his HIV in examine, Defendants failed to offer Nick along with his HIV treatment. As a direct and proximate consequence, Nick’s HIV devolved into AIDS.”
Nicholas Overfield along with his younger youngster. Throughout a jail keep, Overfield by no means obtained essential drugs and subsequently died, a lawsuit says.
(Overfield household)
The lawsuit is filed towards the county of El Dorado in addition to Wellpath Group Care, an organization that contracts with governments to offer medical remedy in correctional amenities. Wellpath is the biggest supplier of correctional healthcare within the nation, in accordance with the Division of Justice.
Clarke claimed that the corporate had a historical past of offering insufficient look after inmates in correctional environments.
A 2021 investigation by the Division of Justice into San Luis Obispo County Jail — the place Wellpath offers healthcare providers — discovered that the ability had failed to offer HIV antiretroviral drugs to sure sufferers.
“Medicines for prisoners with HIV are often delayed or not supplied through the entirety of a prisoner’s incarceration, which may trigger remedy failure by creating drug resistance, or by failing to maintain viral masses at an undetectable stage,” wrote legal professionals for the Justice Division within the report.
The report discovered that the jail had didn’t “present constitutionally ample medical care to prisoners.”
The corporate has been investigated by the Justice Division in quite a few states, and a Reuters investigation discovered that inmates held in jails the place the private-equity-owned firm operated had been extra more likely to die than at their county-controlled counterparts.
Wellpath didn’t instantly present a touch upon Overfield’s demise. The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Workplace additionally didn’t reply to The Instances’ request for remark.
