Lawsuit says woman gave birth alone on Maryland jail floor

(AP) – A lady who mentioned she was left to present beginning to her child alone on the soiled, concrete ground of her jail cell in Maryland filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday alleging that jail nurses ignored her screams and pleas for assist for six hours.

Jazmin Valentine alleges some nurses working for the jail’s contracted medical supplier, Pennsylvania-based PrimeCare Medical, Inc., mentioned she was withdrawing from medicine, not in labor, and a few jail staffers and medical employees laughed at her, saying she was simply making an attempt to get out of her cell late at evening in July 2021 on the Washington County jail in Hagerstown.

Valentine claims she punched the partitions of her solitary confinement cell, which didn’t have blankets or sheets, throughout her most painful contractions and eliminated what she believed was her child’s amniotic sac and slid it underneath her cell door to show she was about to have a child.

A fellow inmate, listening to Valentine’s pleas, referred to as Valentine’s boyfriend, who referred to as the jail pleading with staffers to assist her, the lawsuit mentioned.

The nurses additionally ignored a priority raised by a jail deputy about Valentine, however he didn’t contact any superiors, the lawsuit mentioned. He found Valentine holding the child lady in her cell about quarter-hour after she was born simply after midnight on July 4, 2021, and an ambulance was referred to as to take them to the hospital, based on the lawsuit.

Due to the unsanitary situations within the cell, the child developed a kind of staph micro organism an infection that’s immune to many antibiotics, the lawsuit mentioned.

Valentine, who had by no means given beginning earlier than, mentioned she feared that her child would die and he or she would possibly bleed out whereas delivering her. However realizing that nobody was going to assist, she mentioned she was decided to attempt to ship the child on her personal.

“In my mind something might occur,” she mentioned of her fears. “I felt like I used to be within the arms of the satan, actually.”

The lawsuit alleges that Washington County, Maryland, its sheriff division and sheriff, in addition to nurses and deputies on the jail violated Valentine’s rights underneath state regulation and the Structure.

County spokesperson Danielle Weaver mentioned the county had no remark. PrimeCare didn’t instantly return a phone name in search of remark.

Valentine was over eight months pregnant when she was arrested for an alleged probation violation and brought to the jail the day earlier than she went into labor, the lawsuit mentioned. Valentine was launched a number of days later and her child is doing properly, she mentioned Tuesday.

The lawsuit is much like one filed in 2019 by a girl who gave beginning alone in Denver’s jail the 12 months earlier than, claiming that nurses and deputies ignored her pleas for assist for 5 hours. Surveillance video launched then by the regulation agency representing Diana Sanchez, which can be representing Valentine, confirmed her mendacity down on a slim mattress, crying out in ache and delivering a child boy. The town ultimately settled the lawsuit.

Following Sanchez’s supply, the Denver County Sheriff’s Division, which runs the jail, mentioned it modified its coverage to make sure that pregnant inmates who’re in any stage of labor are instantly taken to the hospital. Beforehand, selections about whether or not to maneuver a pregnant inmate had been left to jail nurses however deputies had been licensed to name for an ambulance for somebody in labor.

David Lane, whose regulation agency is concerned in each instances, mentioned he believes they spotlight issues each of privatizing well being care behind bars and the attitudes of correctional directors.

“So long as jail and jail directors view inmates as animals, these sorts of issues will proceed to occur,” he mentioned.

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