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On the same day the John Howard Society released a report calling for improved health care in provincial jails, a disabled inmate described in court how he was denied crutches and missed doses of his prescription medication at Ottawa’s notorious jail.
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Breathing heavily as he hobbled into court on his one good leg, a handcuffed Stephane Therrien braced himself against a pillar before taking a seat in the witness box of a L’Orignal courtroom to tell a judge how he wanted to take an early guilty plea to not only see his family sooner, but to get out of the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre on Innes Road altogether.
“I just want to get out of that place,” said Therrien, who used his sentencing hearing as a platform to describe what life’s been like for him in the four weeks he’s been at the jail since being arrested in a Hawkesbury drug bust on March 24.
Therrien is on disability pension as a result of his Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a chronic condition that affects the central nervous system and can result in a prolonged pain in an affected limb. Therrien usually walks with crutches that attach to his arms at the wrist. Therrien said he requested the crutches when he first arrived at the jail, but was told they pose a security risk and he couldn’t have them.
(In an interview with Postmedia before the sentencing hearing, Therrien said the only thing the jail would do to accommodate him was offer him the bottom bunk.)
Therrien said he has since missed five or six missed doses of his prescription hydromorphone and Lyrica, a drug that can be used to treat patients with nerve damage. The 40-year-old said the other prescription painkiller he takes, Dilautid, has been denied altogether. The pain has been unbearable at times and just getting around the jail is a challenge, Therrien told the court.
Therrien said he saw the doctor only once since’s he’s gone into custody, and that was for about a minute on the first day he was at the jail. Therrien said he filled in a white form he believed was for requesting a doctor, only to learn a week later that he was supposed to fill in a green form instead.
But even after filling in a green form nearly three weeks ago, he still hasn’t seen a doctor, despite collapsing in a shower on the weekend and suffering from what he suspects is a urinary tract infection.
“I requested and requested and never saw him,” said Therrien of the jail doctor. “He’s like a ghost.”
Therrien said he couldn’t move to the jail’s infirmiary, because all the beds are full. While visits by nurses are more frequent, they are only there to dispense the prescription medications through a slot in the cell door, said Therrien.
But provincial prosecutor Raphael Feldstein suggested that a convicted drug dealer and addict like Therrien would “do anything” to get out of his first lengthy stint at the jail.
“You know the news is abuzz with the treatment of inmates and you are jumping on the bandwagon,” Feldstein told Therrien, who rejected the allegation.
“The court has to worry it is creating a situation right now for inmates to jump on that, complain about that, build further sympathy for their circumstances,” Feldstein said.
And federal prosecutor Veronique Fournier suggested Therrien’s missed doses of prescription medicine were the exception, not the rule.
But Therrien’s girlfriend, Jessica Cyr, said she had never seen her boyfriend in such rough shape.
“It hurts me to see him like that,” said Cyr, who herself was charged when Therrien was arrested, although he has accepted all responsibility for the drugs.
Ontario Court Justice Jean Legault declined to make any findings of fact based on Therrien’s uncorroborated evidence of what happened to him in the jail, but acknowledged it would be a difficult place to reside given his medical condition.
Legault said he suspected Therrien may get his wish for a transfer to another provincial jail after sentencing Therrien to nine months for possessing 855 methamphetmine pills and more than 200 morphine pills for the purpose of trafficking. Therrien also admitted to possessing a quantity of cannabis resin, a metal bar that had been sawed off and turned into a weapon along with bear spray, even though he was previously banned from possessing any weapons.
Legault said the sentence took into account the difficulties Therrien would have at the jail while still recognizing the severity of the offences.
aseymour@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/andrew_seymour
查看原文...
Related
Breathing heavily as he hobbled into court on his one good leg, a handcuffed Stephane Therrien braced himself against a pillar before taking a seat in the witness box of a L’Orignal courtroom to tell a judge how he wanted to take an early guilty plea to not only see his family sooner, but to get out of the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre on Innes Road altogether.
“I just want to get out of that place,” said Therrien, who used his sentencing hearing as a platform to describe what life’s been like for him in the four weeks he’s been at the jail since being arrested in a Hawkesbury drug bust on March 24.
Therrien is on disability pension as a result of his Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a chronic condition that affects the central nervous system and can result in a prolonged pain in an affected limb. Therrien usually walks with crutches that attach to his arms at the wrist. Therrien said he requested the crutches when he first arrived at the jail, but was told they pose a security risk and he couldn’t have them.
(In an interview with Postmedia before the sentencing hearing, Therrien said the only thing the jail would do to accommodate him was offer him the bottom bunk.)
Therrien said he has since missed five or six missed doses of his prescription hydromorphone and Lyrica, a drug that can be used to treat patients with nerve damage. The 40-year-old said the other prescription painkiller he takes, Dilautid, has been denied altogether. The pain has been unbearable at times and just getting around the jail is a challenge, Therrien told the court.
Therrien said he saw the doctor only once since’s he’s gone into custody, and that was for about a minute on the first day he was at the jail. Therrien said he filled in a white form he believed was for requesting a doctor, only to learn a week later that he was supposed to fill in a green form instead.
But even after filling in a green form nearly three weeks ago, he still hasn’t seen a doctor, despite collapsing in a shower on the weekend and suffering from what he suspects is a urinary tract infection.
“I requested and requested and never saw him,” said Therrien of the jail doctor. “He’s like a ghost.”
Therrien said he couldn’t move to the jail’s infirmiary, because all the beds are full. While visits by nurses are more frequent, they are only there to dispense the prescription medications through a slot in the cell door, said Therrien.
But provincial prosecutor Raphael Feldstein suggested that a convicted drug dealer and addict like Therrien would “do anything” to get out of his first lengthy stint at the jail.
“You know the news is abuzz with the treatment of inmates and you are jumping on the bandwagon,” Feldstein told Therrien, who rejected the allegation.
“The court has to worry it is creating a situation right now for inmates to jump on that, complain about that, build further sympathy for their circumstances,” Feldstein said.
And federal prosecutor Veronique Fournier suggested Therrien’s missed doses of prescription medicine were the exception, not the rule.
But Therrien’s girlfriend, Jessica Cyr, said she had never seen her boyfriend in such rough shape.
“It hurts me to see him like that,” said Cyr, who herself was charged when Therrien was arrested, although he has accepted all responsibility for the drugs.
Ontario Court Justice Jean Legault declined to make any findings of fact based on Therrien’s uncorroborated evidence of what happened to him in the jail, but acknowledged it would be a difficult place to reside given his medical condition.
Legault said he suspected Therrien may get his wish for a transfer to another provincial jail after sentencing Therrien to nine months for possessing 855 methamphetmine pills and more than 200 morphine pills for the purpose of trafficking. Therrien also admitted to possessing a quantity of cannabis resin, a metal bar that had been sawed off and turned into a weapon along with bear spray, even though he was previously banned from possessing any weapons.
Legault said the sentence took into account the difficulties Therrien would have at the jail while still recognizing the severity of the offences.
aseymour@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/andrew_seymour
查看原文...
