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NYCAHN'S PAROLEE

HUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT IS FIGHTING TO IMPROVE ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE IN NEW YORK STATE PRISONS

MEDIA ADVISORY

April 30, 2004

Contact: Graziela Tanaka   (917) 714-4666 or

        (718) 802-9540

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS DENIES HEPATITIS C AND HIV TREATMENT TO NEW YORK STATE INMATES

Recent releasees to testify at New York State Assembly Hearing in Harlem

WHEN: Friday, April 30, 9:30 A.M.

WHERE: Harlem State Office Building ( 163 W. 125 th St. / Frederick Douglass)

BACKGROUND: This Friday, April 30 th , members of the Parolee Human Rights Project, along with other groups that fight for prison rights, will hold a press conference and a demonstration featuring puppets and parolees to draw attention to a public health crisis that is incubating in New York 's prisons. Inmates in the custody of the New York State Department of Corrections are being denied testing, treatment, education, and prevention measures for HIV and Hepatitis C.

Former inmates will deliver a “dose of DOCS' own medicine” to their own offices in the Harlem State Office Building . Empty pill bottles will be labeled with the community's prescriptions for the agency, such as Department of Health oversight and comprehensive HIV prevention and treatment, including access to sterile syringes and condom distribution.

Former inmate and Parolee Human Rights Project member Robert Muriel says, “Due to negligence and interaction with my meds, upon release I saw an AIDS specialist who did a genotype and found that I had built up a cross-resistance to medication. What was done to me is considered inhumane, barbaric, and inconsistent with contemporary standards of decency. As if that wasn't enough, they violated my right to confidentiality by disclosing my HIV status to other inmates.”

HIV and Hepatitis C are several times more prevalent in New York 's prisoners than in its general population, and about 28,000 inmates return to the community every year. The lack of proper health care inside of New York 's correctional facilities not only imperils the lives of those who live in them, but also those of the people who live in the communities to which they return.