Woman forced to give birth in jail cell without medical care, lawsuit says
The video doesn’t have any sound but you can almost hear Diana Sanchez’s cries for help by looking at her grimace as she prepares to give birth in a Denver County Jail cell, on a bench, and just feet away from a toilet (covered with a black censor box).
The woman’s pain is evident as is the absence of any medical personnel. This despite the fact that by the time her baby was born at 10:44 a.m. on July 31, 2018, it had been over five hours since Sanchez alerted deputies she was experiencing contractions and an hour since she informed a deputy that her water broke, according to a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Colorado.
Sanchez is suing the City and County of Denver and Denver Health and Hospital Authority, as well as six individuals for violating her and her child’s constitutional and state law rights.
“While it is an institutional failure that Diana Sanchez never received the medical care that she needed, these are individuals who each made independent decisions to fail to provide her with medical care and they are also responsible for these failures,” said Mari Newman, Sanchez’s lawyer.
The suit alleges that Denver deputies and Denver Health medical staff were supposed to be monitoring Sanchez via the video feed from her cell and that they, as well as the personnel in Sanchez’s proximity, acted in “deliberate indifference” to the woman and the newborn’s “serious medical needs”.
Sanchez told Univision Colorado in an interview last year that even when the excruciating labor was over, she feared for her and her son’s life.
“I was still in pain and crying and asking questions: what is wrong with the baby? Why is he blue? Why isn’t he breathing right?” she explained.
The suit claims that Denver and Denver Health personnel at the jail failed to provide the newborn with the most basic post-delivery medical care. Among these:
- For two minutes after the birth, no nurse dried or warmed the baby.
- For several minutes (or more), no nurse cleared the mucus from the baby’s nose and mouth.
- No nurse applied antibiotic or antiseptic eye drops to the baby to prevent eye infection.
- No nurse provided the baby with a hepatitis B virus vaccine.
- No nurse took any steps to provide necessary care to address risk factors to the baby associated with Sanchez’s use of prescribed methadone, or other high-risk prenatal issues.
“The delivery kit that they finally brought in much later didn’t even include clamps to clamp off the umbilical cord. When Ms. Sanchez was finally taken to the hospital, the EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) there said that she was incredibly lucky she hadn’t bled to death, and that’s all Denver’s fault,” said Newman.
In November 2018, The Denver Sheriff Department finished its internal investigation into the matter. It concluded that “The Department recognizes the importance of inmate wellness and providing the appropriate health care services to every individual in our care. In this case, the investigation determined that the Deputy Sheriffs took the appropriate actions under the circumstances and followed the relevant policies and procedures; therefore, no discipline will be issued.”
“If a woman is in act of labor for hours, and hours, and hours; her water is broken; she’s been experiencing contractions; she’s passing blood, and they know it, and they failed to take her to the hospital so she gives birth in a dirty jail cell next to a toilet bowl, if they think they have done nothing wrong, it’s inconceivable to me,” said Newman.
Yet the Denver Sheriff Department appears to relay the blame to Denver Health. In a statement, the Department said:
“We empathize with anyone who is in jail while pregnant including Ms. Sanchez. We contract with Denver Health Medical to provide comprehensive medical care at both of our jails. Denver Health medical professionals are housed in the jail facilities and have dedicated medical units to provide medical services for those in our care. Ms. Sanchez was in the medical unit and under the care of Denver Health medical professionals at the time she gave birth. To make sure nothing like this happens again, the Denver Sheriff Department has changed its policies to ensure that pregnant inmates who are in any stage of labor are now transported immediately to the hospital. Unfortunately, because there is a lawsuit pending, we are unable to provide further comment at this time”.
Denver Health has not replied to our request for a statement.
“The fact that Denver has now changed its policy to ensure that people are brought to the hospital when they’re in labor is ridiculous. The fact that it is a brand new policy that needed to be articulated because of a lawsuit shows just how broken that system is. Any person, any child would know to call 911 when a person is in labor and get them to the hospital,” said Newman.
She argues that it’s not just common sense. Denver staff is legally bound to call the emergency number if an inmate has serious medical needs as part of a settlement reached in 2008 for the death of 24-year-old Emily Rae Rice in a Denver City Jail cell.
Rice was driving legally drunk when she was involved in a car crash on February 18, 2006. She was taken to Denver Medical Care Center, given over-the-counter pain medication, and eventually taken to jail due to outstanding warrants.
Documents related to her death investigation revealed that the woman moaned and cried for about 20 hours. Other inmates pleaded with the jail staff to heed Rice’s medical needs.
It turns out the woman had serious liver and spleen damage and bled to death.
“As part of the settlement of that case, in addition to $7 million, there was a legally-binding commitment by the City and County of Denver that they would provide additional training to all of their staff, that if there was a medical issue that was so obvious even a layperson could see it, they would require not just to report it to a nurse but to continue to report it up the chain as many times as necessary until medical care was provided. And if nobody provided medical care, to pick up the phone and dial 911. That was a legally-binding commitment over a decade ago and Denver has not lived up to its promise or to its constitutional responsibility,” said Newman.
She added that culpability goes beyond the defendants’ actions.
“Denver’s failure to provide Diana and her baby with medical care is part of an institutional culture of callousness and indifference to human beings and that is something that needs to be changed from the ground up,” Newman said.
Sanchez hopes her civil rights complaint will provoke that change.
“I want justice for what happened because they were inhumane towards me and my baby. He didn’t deserve this he didn’t deserve to be born in jail.”
