Health
Sick Prisoners in New York Were Granted Parole but Remain Behind Bars
When the letter arrived at Westil Gonzalez’s prison cell saying that he had been granted parole, he couldn’t read it. Over the 33 years he had been locked up for murder, multiple sclerosis had taken much of his vision and left him reliant on a wheelchair.
He had a clear sense of what he would do once freed. “I want to give my testimony to a couple of young people who are out there, picking up guns,” Mr. Gonzalez, 57, said in a recent interview. “I want to save one person from what I’ve been through.”
But six months have passed, and Mr. Gonzalez is still incarcerated outside Buffalo, because the Department of Corrections has not found a nursing home that will accept him. Another New York inmate has been in the same limbo for 20 months. Others were released only after suing the state.
America’s elderly prison population is rising, partly because of more people serving long sentences for violent crimes. Nearly 16 percent of prisoners were over 55 in 2022, up from 5 percent in 2007. The share of prisoners over 65 quadrupled over the same time period, to about 4 percent.
Complex and costly medical conditions require more nursing care, both in prison and after an inmate’s release. Across the country, prison systems attempting to discharge inmates convicted of serious crimes often find themselves with few options. Nursing home beds can be hard to find even for those without criminal records.
Spending on inmates’ medical care is increasing — in New York, it has grown to just over $7,500 in 2021 from about $6,000 per person in 2012. Even so, those who work with the incarcerated say the money is often not enough to keep up with the growing share of older inmates who have chronic health problems.
“We see a lot of unfortunate gaps in care,” said Dr. William Weber, an emergency physician in Chicago and medical director of the Medical Justice Alliance, a nonprofit that trains doctors to work as expert witnesses in cases involving prison inmates. With inmates often struggling to get specialty care or even copies of their own medical records, “things fall through the cracks,” he said.
Dr. Weber said he was recently involved in two cases of seriously ill prisoners, one in Pennsylvania and the other in Illinois, who could not be released without a nursing home placement. The Pennsylvania inmate died in prison and the Illinois man remains incarcerated, he said.
Almost all states have programs that allow early release for inmates with serious or life-threatening medical conditions. New York’s program is one of the more expansive: While other states often limit the policy to those with less than six months to live, New York’s is open to anyone with a terminal or debilitating illness. Nearly 90 people were granted medical parole in New York between 2020 and 2023.
But the state’s nursing home occupancy rate hovers around 90 percent, one of the highest in the nation, making it especially hard to find spots for prisoners.
The prison system is “competing with hospital patients, rehabilitation patients and the general public that require skilled nursing for the limited number of beds available,” said Thomas Mailey, a spokesman for the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. He declined to comment on Mr. Gonzalez’s case or on any other inmate’s medical conditions.
Parolees remain in the state’s custody until their original imprisonment term has expired. Courts have previously upheld the state’s right to place conditions on prisoner releases to safeguard the public, such as barring paroled sex offenders from living near schools.
But lawyers and medical ethicists contend that paroled patients should be allowed to choose how to get their care. And some noted that these prisoners’ medical needs are not necessarily met in prison. Mr. Gonzalez, for example, said he had not received glasses, despite repeated requests. His disease has made one of his hands curl inward, leaving his unclipped nails to dig into his palm.
“Although I’m sympathetic to the difficulty of finding placements, the default solution cannot be continued incarceration,” said Steven Zeidman, director of the criminal defense clinic at CUNY School of Law. In 2019, one of his clients died in prison weeks after being granted medical parole.
New York does not publish data on how many inmates are waiting for nursing home placements. One 2018 study found that, between 2013 and 2015, six of the 36 inmates granted medical parole died before a placement could be found. The medical parole process moves slowly, the study showed, sometimes taking years for a prisoner to even get an interview about their possible release.
Finding a nursing home can prove difficult even for a patient with no criminal record. Facilities have struggled to recruit staff, especially since the coronavirus pandemic. Nursing homes may also worry about the safety risk of someone with a prior conviction, or about the financial risk of losing residents who do not want to live in a facility that accepts former inmates.
“Nursing homes have concerns and, whether they are rational or not, it’s pretty easy not to pick up or return that phone call,” said Ruth Finkelstein, a professor at Hunter College who specializes in policies for older adults and reviewed legal filings at The Times’s request.
Some people involved in such cases said that New York prisons often perform little more than a cursory search for nursing care.
Jose Saldana, the director of a nonprofit called the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign, said that when he was incarcerated at Sullivan Correctional Facility from 2010 through 2016, he worked in a department that helped coordinate parolees’ releases. He said he often reminded his supervisor to call nursing homes that hadn’t picked up the first time.
“They would say they had too many other responsibilities to stay on the phone calling,” Mr. Saldana said.
Mr. Mailey, the spokesman for the New York corrections department, said that the agency had multiple discharge teams seeking placement options.
In 2023, Arthur Green, a 73-year-old patient on kidney dialysis, sued the state for release four months after being granted medical parole. In his lawsuit, Mr. Green’s attorneys said that they had secured a nursing home placement for him, but that it lapsed because the Department of Corrections submitted an incomplete application to a nearby dialysis center.
The state found a placement for Mr. Green a year after his parole date, according to Martha Rayner, an attorney who specializes in prisoner release cases.
John Teixeira was granted medical parole in 2020, at age 56, but remained incarcerated for two and a half years, as the state searched for a nursing home. He had a history of heart attacks and took daily medications, including one delivered through an intravenous port. But an assessment from an independent cardiologist concluded that Mr. Teixeira did not need nursing care.
Lawyers with the Legal Aid Society in New York sued the state for his release, noting that during his wait, his port repeatedly became infected and his diagnosis progressed from “advanced” to “end-stage” heart failure.
The Department of Corrections responded that 16 nursing homes had declined to accept Mr. Teixeira because they could not manage his medical needs. The case resolved three months after the suit was filed, when “the judge put significant pressure” on the state to find an appropriate placement, according to Stefen Short, one of Mr. Teixeira’s lawyers.
Some sick prisoners awaiting release have found it difficult to get medical care on the inside.
Steve Coleman, 67, has trouble walking and spends most of the day sitting down. After 43 years locked up for murder, he was granted parole in April 2023 and has remained incarcerated, as the state looks for a nursing home that could coordinate with a kidney dialysis center three times each week.
But Mr. Coleman has not had dialysis treatment since March, when the state ended a contract with its provider. The prison has offered to take Mr. Coleman to a nearby clinic for treatment, but he has declined because he finds the transportation protocol — which involves a strip search and shackles — painful and invasive.
“They say you’ve got to go through a strip search,” he said in a recent interview. “If I’m being paroled, I can’t walk and I’m going to a hospital, who could I be hurting?”
Volunteers at the nonprofit Parole Prep Project, which assisted Mr. Coleman with his parole application, obtained a letter from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City in June offering to give him medical care and help him transition back into the community.
Still incarcerated two months later, Mr. Coleman sued for his release.
In court filings, the state argued that it would be “unsafe and irresponsible” to release Mr. Coleman without plans to meet his medical needs. The state also said that it had contacted Mount Sinai, as well as hundreds of nursing homes, about Mr. Coleman’s placement and had never heard back.
In October, a court ruled in the prison system’s favor. Describing Mr. Coleman’s situation as “very sad and frustrating,” Justice Debra Givens of New York State Supreme Court concluded that the state had a rational reason to hold Mr. Coleman past his parole date. Ms. Rayner, Mr. Coleman’s lawyer, and the New York Civil Liberties Union appealed the ruling on Wednesday.
Fourteen medical ethicists have sent a letter to the prison supporting Mr. Coleman’s release. “Forcing continued incarceration under the guise of ‘best interests,’ even if doing so is well-intentioned, disregards his autonomy,” they wrote.
Several other states have come up with a different solution for people on medical parole: soliciting the business of nursing homes that specialize in housing patients rejected elsewhere.
A private company called iCare in 2013 opened the first such facility in Connecticut, which now houses 95 residents. The company runs similar nursing homes in Vermont and Massachusetts.
David Skoczulek, iCare’s vice president of business development, said that these facilities tend to save states money because the federal government covers some of the costs through Medicaid.
“It’s more humane, less restrictive and cost-effective,” he said. “There is no reason for these people to remain in a corrections environment.”
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests.
The observational study, led by Jorge Nieva, M.D., of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at Keck Medicine, was presented this month at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in San Diego. It has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Researchers looked at dietary, smoking and demographic data for 187 patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer at age 50 or younger.
PANCREATIC CANCER PATIENT SURVIVAL DOUBLED WITH HIGH DOSE OF COMMON VITAMIN, STUDY FINDS
They found that among non-smokers, there was a link between healthier-than-average diets – rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains – and the chance of lung cancer development.
Young lung cancer patients ate more servings of dark green vegetables, legumes and whole grains compared to the average U.S. adult, the researchers found.
Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests. (iStock)
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association.
“Commercially produced (non-organic) fruits, vegetables and whole grains are more likely to be associated with a higher residue of pesticides than dairy, meat and many processed foods,” according to Nieva. He also noted that agricultural workers exposed to pesticides tend to have higher rates of lung cancer.
HIDDEN VIRUS INSIDE GUT BACTERIA LINKED TO DOUBLED COLORECTAL CANCER RISK, STUDY FINDS
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” Nieva told Fox News Digital.
The disease is becoming more common in non-smokers 50 and younger, especially women – despite the fact that smoking rates have been falling for decades, the researcher noted.
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association. (iStock)
“These patients tend to have eaten much healthier diets before their diagnosis than the average American,” he went on. “We need to support research into understanding why Americans – and women in particular – who no longer smoke very much are still having lung cancer,” he said.
DEATHS FROM ONE TYPE OF CANCER ARE SURGING AMONG YOUNGER ADULTS WITHOUT COLLEGE DEGREES
The study did have some limitations, Nieva acknowledged, primarily that it relied on survey data and was limited by the participants’ memories of their food intake.
“Also, the survey participants were self-selected, and this could have biased the findings,” he told Fox News Digital.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking.”
The researchers did not test specific foods for pesticides, relying instead on average pesticide levels for certain types of food. Looking ahead, they plan to test patients’ blood and urine samples to directly measure pesticide levels, Nieva said.
Although the study shows only an association and does not prove that pesticides caused lung cancer, Nieva recommends that people wash their produce before eating and choose organic foods whenever possible.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE HEALTH STORIES
“This work represents a critical step toward identifying modifiable environmental factors that may contribute to lung cancer in young adults,” said Nieva. “Our hope is that these insights can guide both public health recommendations and future investigation into lung cancer prevention.”
“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but is by no means certain,” a doctor said. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, said the study is “interesting,” but that it “raises far more questions than it answers.”
“It is a small study (around 150) and observational, so no proof,” the doctor, who was not involved in the research, told Fox News Digital.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER
“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but it is by no means certain,” Siegel went on. “How much exposure is needed? How much of it gets into food and in which areas? This requires much further study.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Kayla Nichols, communications director for Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, a distributed global network, said the organization agrees with the study’s conclusion that more research should be done on the rise in lung cancer, particularly in individuals eating diets higher in produce and fiber.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” the researcher told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“There is a bounty of existing research that already links pesticide exposure to increased risk of multiple types of cancers,” Nichols, who was also not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. She called for more research on chronic, low-level exposures to pesticides, as well as more effective policies to protect the public from pesticide residues on food.
TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, as well as industry partners including AstraZeneca and Genentech, among others.
Fox News Digital reached out to several pesticide companies and trade groups for comment.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Colorectal cancer, once considered a disease of older age, is becoming a crisis for younger adults. New research shows one group getting hit the hardest – those without a college degree.
A recent study from the American Cancer Society analyzed data from over 101,000 adults aged 25 to 49 who died from colorectal cancer between 1994 and 2023.
While death rates remained stable for college graduates, they climbed significantly for those without a bachelor’s degree, the findings showed.
WIDESPREAD HABIT MAY RAISE COLORECTAL CANCER RISK MORE THAN YOU THINK
For young adults with a high school education or less, the mortality rate rose from 4.0 to 5.2 per 100,000 people, while the rate for those with at least a bachelor’s degree stayed flat, at approximately 2.7 per 100,000.
This does not mean that a degree offers some kind of biological protection, researchers cautioned.
Colorectal cancer, once considered a disease of older age, is becoming a crisis for younger adults. (iStock)
The difference is likely driven by the conditions in which people live and work, which often correlate with education levels, the researchers noted.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER
The study suggests that the higher death rates are likely driven by differences in the prevalence of risk factors, including obesity, physical inactivity, smoking and diet, which are “known to be elevated among children and young adults with lower [socioeconomic status].”
Because the study relied on death certificates, researchers couldn’t say exactly why college graduates had better outcomes.
Because the researchers didn’t have the patients’ actual medical records, they couldn’t see things like frequency of screenings or treatment options, which would impact survival outcomes. (iStock)
Certificates typically list the cause of death, age, race and education level, but they do not include a person’s full medical history.
RED FLAGS FOR COLORECTAL CANCER THAT WARRANT SCREENINGS BEFORE 45 YEARS OF AGE
Because the researchers didn’t have the patients’ actual medical records, they couldn’t see things like frequency of screenings or treatment options, which would impact survival outcomes.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE HEALTH STORIES
Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death for men under 50 and the second leading cause for women in the same age group, according to recent statistics.
While colorectal cancer death rates remained stable for college graduates, they climbed significantly for those without a bachelor’s degree, the findings showed. (iStock)
Because the disease is highly treatable when caught early, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) lowered the recommended screening age from 50 to 45 in 2021.
TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ
Common signs and symptoms of colorectal cancer can include a change in bowel habits, such as diarrhea, constipation or narrowing of the stool, that lasts for more than a few days, according to the American Cancer Society.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Other signs that warrant seeing a doctor include blood in the stool or a persistent feeling of needing to go to the bathroom but being unable to go.
The research was published in JAMA Oncology.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A young woman who started vaping at the age of 15 has been given just 18 months to live — after being diagnosed with lung cancer in her early 20s.
Kayley Boda, 22, of Manchester, in the United Kingdom, was engaging in heavy vaping on a regular basis when she started coughing up a brown substance with “grainy bits” in it in January 2025, news agency SWNS reported.
The retail assistant said doctors turned her away eight times, telling her she had a chest infection — until she began coughing up blood.
SMOKING AND VAPING MAY BE BANNED AT ONE STATE’S MOST POPULAR BEACHES AND PARKS: HERE’S WHY
After seven biopsies, Boda was diagnosed with lung cancer. She underwent surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy — and in February 2026, got the all-clear, the same source reported.
Two months later, though, doctors said the cancer had come back in the pleural lining. Now she’s been given 18 months to live.
Kayley Boda, 22, is shown in the hospital. She started coughing up a brown substance with “grainy bits” in January 2025, she said. She had been vaping since the age of 15. (SWNS)
The young woman has now issued a warning to others to be aware of the dangers of vaping.
Boda said she smoked a bit as a young teenager. She took up vaping after that.
Then, “a few months after I switched from reusable vapes to disposable ones, I started coughing up brown, grainy mucus,” as SWNS reported.
TOURISTS MAY FACE STEEP FINES AND JAIL TIME FOR VAPES AT THIS VACATION HOT SPOT
“Doctors turned me away eight times with a chest infection. … Then I started coughing up blood, so they did an X-ray and found a shadow on my lung,” she added.
“They told me they were 99% sure, [since I was] so young, that it wasn’t cancer, so not to worry about it. When I got the results back, and they told me it was lung cancer, it felt so surreal.”
Boda said she was “very naive” before her diagnosis and thought that “something like this would never happen to me.”
She said that she had surgery to remove half of her right lung.
“After the surgery, I started chemo and I had a terrible reaction to it. I couldn’t lift my head up. I was throwing up blood. I was urinating blood. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep.”
VACATION HOT SPOT CRACKS DOWN ON VAPING WITH JAIL THREATS AND HEFTY FINES
She said that when she got the “all clear [in Feb. 2026], it felt amazing, but just two months later I was told the cancer had come back, and I have 18 months to live.”
She added, “I’m 22. This isn’t meant to happen to somebody my age.”
“Stay off the vapes because they will catch up with you.”
She blames her cancer on vaping, she said.
“My symptoms started a few months after I started disposable vapes, and there’s no lung cancer in my family,” she said. “I haven’t vaped for three months, I’ve made my partner stop, I’ve made my mom stop, I’m urging all my friends to stop. Stay off the vapes,” she continued, “because they will catch up with you.”
When doctors did an X-ray, they found a shadow on Boda’s right lung. She was later diagnosed with lung cancer and has undergone surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy. (SWNS)
She said she’d been using reusable vapes since the age of 15 and began using disposable vapes a few months before her cancer symptoms started.
DISPOSABLE VAPES MORE TOXIC AND CARCINOGENIC THAN CIGARETTES, STUDY SHOWS
In November 2024, when she developed a rash all over her body, doctors said it could have been due to shingles, chicken pox or scabies, she told SWNS.
‘Nothing worked’
“I got treated for all three, and nothing worked,” Boda said. “It got to the point where I was cutting myself from scratching so hard.”
A few months after that, she began coughing up a dark brown mucus, with “grainy bits, the consistency of sugar, in it,” she said. When the coughing continued, she visited the doctor’s office, but was told it could be scarring from pneumonia or a chest infection, she also said.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER
It wasn’t until March 2025 that she began coughing up bright red blood. At that point, doctors gave her a chest X-ray and told her they’d found a shadow on her lower right lung.
Over the next four months, she had seven biopsies as doctors took samples from the “shadow.” In August, when she went to get the results, she was told she had stage one lung cancer.
Boda is shown in the hospital. She was diagnosed with lung cancer and had surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy. (SWNS)
In September 2025, she had surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, and the surrounding lymph nodes. During the surgery, doctors upstaged her cancer from stage one to stage three after finding cancer in six surrounding lymph nodes, she said.
Following the surgery, Boda was unable to breathe properly and had to learn to walk all over again.
“The oncologist said this is so rare.”
After finishing chemotherapy in February 2026, Kayley was given the all clear, leaving her feeling elated.
TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ
However, just a month after that, she began experiencing extreme chest pains and was told by doctors she had a pleural effusion — a build-up of fluid in the lungs. She had the fluid removed, but when doctors tested it, they discovered her cancer had returned to the pleural lining of her lungs, giving her 18 months to live.
“The oncologist said this is so rare, and usually something they see in patients that are 80 years old,” she said, as SWNS reported.
Increasingly, vacation hot spots are enforcing strict bans on the use of e-cigarettes in public venues. (iStock)
Boda claimed that doctors were unable to pin her cancer to a specific cause — but told her that smoking and vaping definitely didn’t help.
Since her diagnosis, she has stopped and is urging others to stop, too.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
She’s hoping to raise the thousands of dollars needed for treatment to try to prolong her life, she said.
Last year, Fox News Digital reported on the case of a Pennsylvania woman, 26, who said she vaped for just one year before her lungs collapsed. She was 22 when she took up the habit, she said in an interview.
“Everybody warned me about it, but I didn’t listen — I wish that I did,” she said.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE HEALTH ARTICLES
Dr. David Campbell, clinical director and program director at Recover Together Bend in Oregon, told Fox News Digital at that time that signs of collapsed lungs include sharp chest or shoulder pain, shortness of breath and difficulty breathing.
Lung issues are just one of the many health issues linked to vaping, he warned. The habit can also increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, as well as exposure to harmful heavy metals.
Melissa Rudy of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.
-
Technology7 minutes agoThe Vergecast Vergecast, 2026 edition
-
World13 minutes agoMexico pyramid shooter who took hostages and killed 1 is identified
-
Politics19 minutes agoByron Donalds cracks down on persistent border blind spot leaving US vulnerable to overstays
-
Health25 minutes agoHealthy diets spark lung cancer risk in non-smokers as pesticides loom
-
Sports31 minutes agoPGA Tour signals new era with axing of Hawaii events from schedule
-
Technology37 minutes agoAlexa+ lets you order food like a real conversation
-
Business43 minutes agoNew lawsuit alleges Uber is violating drivers’ rights. Here’s how
-
Entertainment49 minutes agoReview: Trigger warning? ‘For Want of a Horse’ gives new meaning to the term ‘animal lover’