Hi, my name is Julia Wigley, and the title of my conversation today is “Lack of Healthcare or Inadequate Healthcare, at Women’s Huron Valley Facility in Ypsilanti, Michigan.”
I am experiencing deliberate indifference and downright neglect with the healthcare system here. Last year in 2023, the facility was short on wheelchair aides, for people like me who need wheelchair details due to different illnesses and disabilities. After contacting any and everybody here at the facility about the shortage of aides, and no one, I mean absolutely no one would help me, I contacted an ADA [American Disabilities Act] investigator. After the ADA got involved, the facility began rescinding the wheelchair details of approximately 300 of us, mine included, and said they were never approved correctly. That couldn’t be ’cause none of us would have it.
Anyway, I continued to use my wheelchair due to the plethora of chronic medical conditions that I suffer from. I suffer from vertigo, chronic sciatica on the right and left side, nerve damage in my legs and feet, severe spinal stenosis in my neck and upper back, stenosis in my lower back, gout in my left foot, bone spur in my right knee with osteoarthritis, and this causes spasms and hands and arms to spaz and cramp, and so my discs are also compressed into my nerves, causing chronic pain and discomfort.
After the wheelchair details were all rescinded the DON — D-O-N, Director of Nurses, but her name is Dawn Jones — said we could keep our wheelchair details only if we were able to self propel them with our hands. We could not push the chairs, but we had to sit in them and self propel them. Because it’s almost impossible for me to do that, DON Jones and I got into it on several occasions about me walking the chair. Finally, she told somebody, well, she told me that she was going to take my wheelchair and detail all together, and went to my doctor, Dr. Ellison, and had him rescind all my details pertaining to my chronic medical illnesses. This was back in March of 2024.
In the meantime, I went to a neurosurgeon consult, and it was like an assembly line in his office. However, that’s where they scheduled us. I went to him reporting lesions, Dr. Beshear, up in Jackson, Michigan. After consulting with him regarding surgery, I thought it was all settled, and he was, you know, had the go ahead to set it up. Well, I had a doctor’s visit after that with Dr. Ellison again, and he said the doctor put in the report that I said I don’t have any problems walking, with balance, no recent falls, no incontinence, nothing. I’m just basically okay. Of course, I was livid. I told the doctor that was not right, and asked if he could email Dr. Beshear and tell him that there was a discrepancy, in the, in the assessment, and if we could talk about it. And Dr. Ellison told me no, that I had to do that, and I’m like what? I’m a prisoner.
In the meantime, I’ve gotten three misconducts for using a wheelchair without a detail, and today I fell because my right foot and my leg went numb, and damn, I went down. I went to healthcare, and they did absolutely nothing for me. Dr. Ellison won’t even see me. He won’t even talk to me, right? So, I’m just stuck in limbo, and this is very stressful for me, and because they are playing with my health, it’s just some days are debilitating — I can barely walk, and Dr. Ellison had the nerve to tell me he wants to keep me mobile. What do you mean you want to keep me mobile? I have a full life in the penitentiary, so how am I not mobile?
Well, that’s my story, you know. I hope it doesn’t sound like, you know, I’m being a victim, because I’m absolutely not. I just need some help, and hope somebody out there can help me. Thank you so much.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.