Medical Murder in Chautauqua

According to Chautauqua County Jail officials, Martellion J. Ham (aka Ham) died of an anxiety attack.  This in spite of the fact that he supposedly had taken asthma medication and used a rescue inhaler.  He had, according to family members, asked for help, but a jailhouse nurse said that he didn’t need to go to the hospital in her opinion.

I have a problem with this.

First, in the school where I work, I have students that have asthma.  They take medication and carry rescue inhalers.  When they use their rescue inhalers they have to report to the nurse and the nurse has to monitor them and, on occasion, send them to the hospital for further treatment.  This is rare, but treated very seriously.

What type of monitoring did the nurse give to Ham?  How much direct monitoring? 

According to the Buffalo News story, Ham was unconscious before he was sent to the hospital.  That was too late. 

To be clear – no police violence occurred.  This was a case of medical negligence. The jail lacked adequate trained and medically minded personnel to treat the conditions of the people it is responsible for.  Ham was seen in the jail video swaying and staggering.  Given that visually confirmed medical condition, this physical behavior indicates that something is physically wrong with Ham and that medical attention is needed immediately.

The nurse decided that it could wait until morning. 

Morning was too late.

Now, instead of dealing with a prisoner, they are dealing with an investigation and a lawsuit.

If he was uncooperative with taking his medication, that needed to be documented.  Was it? By the nurse? Immediately? Or is this something that was just “remembered” later and put into a report.  If he was low on his medication, as alleged, why was the family, doctor, or pharmacy not immediately notified so that it could be secured?

So many parts of this story just don’t flow.

Just like the air that Ham needed to be breathing so that he could live.