On April the 3rd 2024, at 4 PM, Mark Ron passed away while housed at Terre Haute Regional Hospital. He injured himself on March the 12th 2024, doing his job as a sanitation worker for the production kitchen, loading bags of compost onto a container. In the process he injured his lower back and left thigh. He admittedly went in for the rest of the day.
He put in a medical request on the same day. He was seen two days later on March the 14th, 2024. The medical staff interviewed him and put him in to see the doctor. And the doctor gave him pain medication, steroids, 30 pack — a 30-pack steroid, called prednisone.
Mark went back to work a few days later. His injury got worse. He had to take a few more days out from work. Finally, on March the 21st 2024, he was seen by Doctor Byrd and medical staff. He was put on the examination table to see the gravity of his injury.
Doctor commented, “X-ray,” and suspended his steroid pills, and gave him an injection instead. Within 24 hours, Mark was suffering from pain and had an allergic reaction from the injection which had been Ibuprofen, to which he was allergic to. For two days, Mark slept in a chair and he was unable to move. He had to use Gatorade bottles to urinate in.
His friend, Mustafa Malik [Mustafaa R El-Malik] literally went into action, and to aid his friend. Malik convinced Mark’s cellmate to let Mark have the bottom bunk because Mark was sleeping on the top bunk. Malik brought a wheelchair from another inmate and undressed him and took him to the shower and washed him. He had no control over his bowels. He was in pain. Mark asked Malik to call his sister Bernice Connors and give her an update on his condition. From that point forward Malik took care of him, fed him, cleaned him, washed him daily, while conditions worsened. After multiple phone calls to his sister and Malik’s complaints to staff, the medical finally seen him. Once that was over, they sent him right back to the cell house. We kept asking, “Why would they send him back?” Staff members also inquired and called numerous times to readmit him to the infirmary for administrative care.
After calling his sister over and over again, on a daily basis, on April the 2nd, they finally admitted him into the infirmary. Once he was there, Dr. Byrd ordered a MRI and sent him to Terre Haute Regional. Within 24 hours he succumbed to his injury.
All of this could have been avoided and perhaps he would still be alive if they hadn’t been negligent, had they have given him the proper care. Please contact Mustafaa Rashid El-Malik [DOC Number] 893230 [Wabash Valley Corr. Institution] for any additional information.
And I would like to say this. It has come to the point in prison, especially with older prisoners, when they’re no longer a productive member of the prison labor workforce they are useless, and it costs the board more to keep these prisoners alive, to buy their medication, than to let them die. It’s almost like being in a concentration camp, where your survival depends on whether or not you’re able to work, and if you’re not able to work, you go to the gas chamber. You’re useless. Even in this capitalist American society when you are no longer a productive member of the capitalist workforce, you’re useless, because the government pays to keep you. So, they are willing to commit elderly genocide than pay all of this money to keep you alive.
This is what’s happening in prison with elderly prisoners. This prisoner was 65 years old. If people didn’t let him die, you keep him alive, and the last thing the doctor said to this prisoner was this: “I know you want to sue me. They may give you $300,000 and a couple hundred thousand for the pain and suffering.” Those were the doctor’s last words to that prisoner. This is an admission of his guilt, that he knows that he did something wrong.
I encourage people to write Malik. I encourage people to try to reach out to the system for new comments, or we would give a follow up. Malik was given additional information but I encourage people also to share this project and let people know that what goes on inside and especially with elderly people, prisoners.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.