Lexington health officials urge federal prison employees to be tested for coronavirus
Public health officials on Wednesday urged anyone who has worked since April 20 at the Federal Medical Center, the federal prison on Leestown Road in Lexington, to be tested for the novel coronavirus.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons reported online that at least 57 inmates and three employees at the prison so far have tested positive for COVID-19.
But even with a coronavirus outbreak underway, prison administrators have been unresponsive to questions from the Lexington mayor’s office and the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, local officials said. So it’s unknown how many inmates and staff have been tested or what steps, if any, the prison is taking to isolate infected inmates, they said.
“Communication with them has been sporadic, and sometimes it’s non-existent,” said health department spokesman Kevin Hall.
A similar outbreak at a state prison in Muhlenberg County has killed three inmates, prompting Gov. Andy Beshear to order testing of all inmates and staff at that facility and segregation of infected and exposed inmates. But local and state officials have no jurisdiction over the Federal Medical Center, Hall said.
“We can’t control anything that happens within their walls because that’s a federal institution,” Hall said.
“What we can do is reach out to the people who come out into the community from there,” Hall said. “So anyone who has worked at the Federal Medical Center since April 20, whether they are an employee of that facility or a vendor who just visited, we want them to call 859-899-2222 so we can help them with their testing options.”
The Herald-Leader’s calls to the Lexington prison were not answered Wednesday. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Nationally, at least 42 inmates have died after testing positive for COVID-19 in federal prisons, with an additional 2,465 federal inmates and prison staff infected so far.
In calls and emails to the Herald-Leader, several inmates and their loved ones in recent days have described a crowded and chaotic scene inside the Federal Medical Center, which holds 1,248 inmates inside a complex of five buildings, with 208 more inmates housed at an adjoining minimum-security camp. About 480 prison employees have contact with inmates.
Inmates are given one face mask per week to protect themselves from the virus, these people said. But the prison staff sometimes does not wear protective gear, and inmates who appear to be sick or who have tested positive share space with others, creating an infection risk, they said.
“They are putting inmates that have tested positive for COVID-19 in the unit with people who have not tested positive,” said Brittany Tubbs, whose 32-year-old brother, Samuel Washington, is an inmate. “My brother’s bunkie passed out from the virus.”
Also, these people added, some corrections officers work other jobs in the community, elevating the chance they are carrying the highly infectious virus into the prison, which otherwise is closed to the public.
On April 23, corrections officers conducted a “shakedown” search of inmates’ personal possessions without wearing masks or gloves, said Jamiel Jackson, whose 59-year-old father, David Charles Jackson, is an inmate at the prison. Officers at other times touch inmates’ clothing, bedding, food and medicine without donning protective gear, Jackson said.
“The staff may have exposed my father and other inmates to the coronavirus,” Jackson said.
The corrections’ officers union, American Federation of Government Employees Local 817, did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment.
Cynthia Ann Faulkner, 35, who is housed in the prison’s camp, said she shares a 512-square-foot room with 16 other women. The prison is currently on lockdown, so inmates are crowded together and cannot move anywhere in order to socially distance, Faulkner said.
“We eat elbow to elbow,” she wrote in an email to the Herald-Leader. “We are sitting ducks, hoping (the virus) doesn’t seep its way in here. If it does, we wouldn’t even be able to tell our families or children goodbye. We would die in a faux-quarantine in this building.”
This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 3:42 PM.
