LIHUE — A local construction worker is suing the state Department of Public Safety for failing to provide his back pain medication or appropriate treatment while he served a week in jail.
Preston Shiira, 54, of Kapaa, filed a civil suit in 5th Circuit Court on Nov. 19. He is naming the DPS, and specifically a nurse practitioner and two nurses who work for Kauai Community Correctional Center through Kauai Medical Clinic as defendants.
Shiira’s attorney, Eric Seitz, said the standard of care for inmates in state prisons is clearly established and is the same as the standard of care for people in the community.
“They are entitled to the same level of treatment or care whether they are in prison or not,” Seitz said.
Shiira self-reported for a court-ordered seven-day incarceration at KCCC on Jan. 2, 2011. He had been sentenced to a week in jail for failing to show proof of automobile insurance.
According to the complaint, Shiira was under the care of a physician for chronic back and shoulder pain and underwent multiple surgeries over two decades. His care included a regimen of prescription pain medication that allowed him to continue working in construction.
Shiira presented his medications with prescriptions to the KCCC medical staff, along with his medical history and treatment plan. The suit alleges that staff would not follow the orders of the inmate’s physician and administer his narcotics while in custody. They instead followed the directive of the state doctors and administered Shiira with ibuprofen for his complaints.
Shiira reportedly spent the entire week in extreme pain and nausea. He was unable to eat, sleep or lie down without discomfort and was dehydrated from vomiting.
DPS couldn’t comment on the case specifically.
But DPS Public Information Officer Toni Schwartz said that when someone with a medical condition is sentenced to prison, they become a patient of the state. The attending physicians and medical staff follow policies and procedures limiting or changing community medication orders based on PSD’s narcotic use guidelines.
“The doctors at the facilities become their doctor for the time they are incarcerated,” Schwartz said.
Shiira filed a claim for medical malpractice with the state Medical Claims Conciliation Panel on Dec. 27, 2012. The board replied with a rejection of his claim Aug. 23, and his appeal letter was filed with an MCCP Administrative Hearings officer on Nov. 13.
Pain management is a science, and Shiira kept his condition under control and was able to work and function as a parent and construction worker with the help of medication, Seitz said. For whatever reason when Shiira spent a week in jail he was denied his health plan prescribed by a physician.
Instead, Shiira was treated as an addict and the staff used drugs to allow his withdrawal from pain medication that he had not needed to come off of that medication, he said.
“He was treated worse than almost anyone that I have ever seen in my 45 years of doing prison litigation,” Seitz said.
Seitz said that there isn’t a law that would justify withholding medication to a patient in jail.
The concerns about the risk of abuse among the inmate population are sincere, he said, but the solution is to carefully monitor dispensing procedures and not to deny someone their constitutional rights.
The complaint is seeking monetary damages to be stated at trial.
The state is accused of violating Shiira’s due process rights, and that negligence of staff and lack of supervision by a superior agency inflicted intentional emotional distress.
The case is assigned to Chief Judge Randal Valenciano. No hearings have been scheduled as the Department of Public Safety has not been served yet.
Seitz said he intends to motion for summary judgment.
