Mommy, Help!
The ongoing harrowing experiences with medical neglect while incarcerated.
By Todd Mandoline
If no one else cares, my mother will.
Throughout my incarceration, I have witnessed utter disregard for humanity when it comes to medical concerns pertaining to individuals in custody. My own experience has been no different.
In October 2022, I woke up around 4 a.m. with nausea, cold sweats, and the inability to regulate my body temperature. These symptoms caused me to vomit repeatedly for the next five days.
The symptoms subsided. The heat had yet to be turned on in my living unit in October. Coupled with a draft inside my cell, I figured the sickness was simply a seasonal virus that worked its way out of my system.
How I wish that were the case.
Three months later, the symptoms returned for nine agonizing days, preventing me from eating, sleeping, or performing simple everyday activities to keep up my hygiene.
I was told to rest, stay hydrated, and stick to a clear liquid diet. However, this did little to ease my fear and anxiety of this health issue taking hold of my body. My emotions ranged from fear and anger to utter hopelessness and defeat.
Over time, the symptoms would unexpectedly return for an unknown duration, bringing my entire life to a standstill. It’s as if my body hated me and was attempting to torture me to the fullest extent before giving out.
Well, hurry up and get it over with then.
After several months of pain, I was notified by an anonymous insider of the Stateville healthcare unit that my name had been circulating regarding my health issues. “Oh, his MOMMY called to complain,” someone had said with a healthy disdain. The causes of my pain and suffering had left me to desperately plead to the only person who could bring me relief: my mom.
Imagine if it was your son, brother, father, or husband who was in prison experiencing physical pain or discomfort. How would you hope the on-site medical professionals responded to their medical issues?
Certainly not to mock or discredit them because “mommy” was forced to call as a last-ditch effort.
The seeming disregard and lack of a diagnosis—coupled with a lack of humanity and care for others—was not unique at Stateville. After injuring my left knee in 2016, I wasn’t sent to an outside hospital until 2022. There, an MRI confirmed a partial tear of my meniscus. My next-door neighbor consistently bled from his rectum since April 2023 and a year later had not been sent out or diagnosed.
How about Johnny, a 42-year-old type-1 diabetic who has been on dialysis for six years now? On the evening of Jan. 25, 2024, he began to experience pain in his left bicep, where his port was implemented for his three weekly dialysis treatments, preventing him from moving his arm past a 90-degree angle.
He alerted a medical technician and asked what to do. She told him that it was most likely a blood clot, but he would have to wait until the next morning to tell the nurses at dialysis. They would have to be the ones who sent him to the outside hospital.
On the morning of Jan. 26, he was sent to an outside hospital where an emergency surgery was performed. Due to the alarming number of blood clots, the surgery that should have taken one hour instead lasted for five. If he had waited any longer, the surgeon told him, it was highly likely he would have died.
This is not to say that the healthcare professionals in Stateville didn’t care about individuals in custody. Most times, their hands were simply tied for lack of resources. The backlog of patients needing to be seen is great, and in addition to people who are truly ill, the list includes people who believe they have a life-threatening illness but actually have a simple cold or flu, as well as individuals who are seeking attention and lying about their health in order to get out to see a specialist such as a gastrointestinal doctor. The backlog of patients throughout the healthcare system isn’t just confined to those who are incarcerated; there are fewer providers available to treat everyone efficiently.
But lack of resources is not an excuse. Treat us with dignity, without dismissing our humanity. Act as if it were your loved ones going through trauma. If we adhered to the Golden Rule—treat others the way you want to be treated—then many of these issues could be remedied. Though we have been convicted of crimes, we are still human beings and should be treated as such.
This starts with the nurses and doctors employed by the State of Illinois. Our lives are literally in your hands.
This piece was written in early 2024, prior to the passing of Janice Mandoline, Todd’s mother. A tribute to Janice can be found on page 109.
