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As cancer spread in Susie Balfour’s body, she says prison medical providers failed to treat it. Now she’s fighting for life.

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A formerly incarcerated woman facing terminal breast cancer is suing the prison system’s former and current health care providers for failing to diagnose and treat the disease until it spread in her body.

Susie Annie Balfour, 62, of Memphis, is the plaintiff in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi that alleges prison medical officials acted with deliberate indifference because they knew for years that she might have cancer, but they did not order a biopsy to confirm until November 2021.

Over the course of a decade, Balfour had at least eight mammograms at Merit Health Central in Jackson. That number is less than the annual mammograms and later twice a year mammograms outside doctors recommended after each of her visits, according to the lawsuit.

Stage 4 cancer has metastasized and spread to Balfour’s lymph nodes, bones and other parts of her body. She said she’s trying to stay encouraged and do what she can.

“I never know when my time will be up, but until then I’m not going to stop fighting,” said Balfour, who was incarcerated at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility for over 30 years and released on parole in December 2021.

The complaint alleges the contract between the Mississippi Department of Corrections – which is not named as a defendant – and former medical contractors Wexford Health Sources and Centurion of Mississippi and current contractor VitalCore Health Strategies created financial incentive for the companies to withhold necessary and lifesaving care to incarcerated people.

How that manifested was reduced outpatient referrals and hospitalizations and encouragement of conservative care to cut costs, according to the complaint.

“This is just another avenue to draw attention to what’s happening in the prisons,” said Andrew Tominello, who is representing Balfour.

Balfour first asked prison medical staff for a mammogram in June 2011.

After that visit, doctors recommended she return for follow-up annual mammograms to monitor any changes in calcifications found in her right breast. By 2016, doctors recommended she have mammograms every six months.

Instead, Balfour went up to three years between follow-ups, according to the lawsuit.

It wasn’t until Nov. 3, 2021, that a biopsy revealed Balfour had an invasive, malignant cancer in her breast, court documents state.

The lawsuit alleges VitalCore was aware of the doctors’ findings from the November visit and did not inform Balfour about the cancer until days before her release on Dec. 27, 2021.

Less than a week after leaving prison, Balfour went to the University of Mississippi Medical Center where she had another mammogram and full testing, which the doctor used to diagnose her cancer as Stage 4.

Balfour wonders if actions had been taken sooner, maybe things would have turned out differently with her health.

On behalf of its provider VitalCore, MDOC declined to comment. Representatives from Centurion and Wexford did not respond to a request for comment.

Other defendants named in the lawsuit are Merit Health Central and multiple physicians and nurses employed by the hospital and prison health care providers. The lawsuit accuses them of malpractice for failing to properly diagnose and treat Balfour, causing her cancer to progress.

A spokesperson for Merit Health declined to comment. Defendants will have 21 days to respond to the lawsuit complaint.

The lawsuit also alleges Balfour and other incarcerated people were required to clean the prison with chemicals such as glyphosate that are known to cause cancer. They were not given protective equipment when mixing raw chemicals to avoid exposure, according to the complaint.

To date, at least 15 other people incarcerated at CMCF have cancer, and they are not receiving “necessary, life-saving treatment,” according to the lawsuit.

READ: SMCI inmate, fearing he has cancer, still awaiting needed medical procedure, he says

“These are human beings that deserve a second chance in life. Instead they’re being allowed to get sick and left to die,” Pauline Rogers, co-founder of the RECH Foundation that helps women returning from prison, said in a statement.

Balfour is seeking compensatory and punitive damages to be determined at trial.

Centurion became MDOC’s inmate health care provider in 2016 after a multi-year bribery scandal that led to the 2014 indictment of then-MDOC commissioner Christopher Epps and prison contractors including Wexford. VitalCore Health Strategies became the provider in 2020.

In a separate lawsuit, VitalCore is being sued for failing to provide adequate medical and mental health care to incarcerated people and proper accommodations and services to those with disabilities.

Balfour was incarcerated for a capital murder conviction in the shooting death of a Southaven police officer that carried a death sentence that was overturned in 1991. She was resentenced to serve 30 years, according to court records.

“I just want everybody to be held accountable,” she said. “ … and I just want justice for myself and other ladies and men in there who are dealing with the same situation I am dealing with.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1997

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-22 07:00:00

Dec. 22, 1997

Myrlie Evers and Reena Evers-Everette cheer the jury verdict of Feb. 5, 1994, when Byron De La Beckwith was found guilty of the 1963 murder of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers. Credit: AP/Rogelio Solis

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers. 

In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.” 

He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.” 

The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi

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mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2024-12-22 06:00:00

About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.

The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.

Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.

During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.

“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”

White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.

Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.

White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.

Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.

People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.

White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.

They are correct.

But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.

As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.

Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.

That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.

Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?

If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.

The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.

In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1911

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-21 07:00:00

Dec. 21, 1911

A colorized photograph of Josh Gibson, who was playing with the Homestead Grays Credit: Wikipedia

Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia. 

When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs. 

He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame. 

The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays. 

Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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