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by Rene Franco
The people who are housed in this institution, Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad, Calif., are having a lot of issues with medical. It’s very degrading.
Nurses here have been fired due to stealing and actually take pills orally. Doctors are taking convicts off their pain medication, such as morphine, methadone and Gabapetine, known as Neurontin, saying it’s being abused. Individuals with knee pain, surgeries, back surgeries, pins in their bodies are all being weaned off all pain meds.
Correction officers don’t care about us convicts nor do the doctors, only themselves and those with badges. Two people died in November 2013 due to doctors not listening to them when they were saying that something is wrong with them.
Also, last year CO Reck and CO Aredando saw an inmate attempting to commit suicide but did not pay heed to him. All that was said is “take that rope off your neck” and he obliged.
They walked on, releasing other inmates out of their cells, and when they returned on their way back, the same individual had a blade out of a razor and had cut his throat open on both sides of his neck. They sprayed him with OC pepper spray, which is not right. They took so long that he cut his wrist as well.
Then the COs put on special suits and headed back to find the cell extraction shield. By then he was under his bunk as the COs came into his cell. They dragged him out by his feet.
Then they told him to stay down and not move while nurses and COs tried to revive or shock him. He stood up and got sprayed again.
They pumped his chest manually for like 30 minutes. He was already dead.
Send our brother some love and light: Rene Franco, K-90164, Salinas Valley State Prison, P.O. Box 1050, Soledad, CA 93960. This letter was postmarked Jan. 7, 2014. The Bay View sincerely apologizes for the delay in publishing it.
