As Health Conditions Worsen At Prison Holding 1,000 Detainees, Staff Fears A Riot

[workinclasszero]

Despite workers’ alerts about the unsafe conditions at Victorville, little has been improved and infectious disease is rapidly spreading.
By Lauren Weber HEALTH 07/02/2018 10:10 pm ET Updated 2 hours ago

Staffers at a federal prison complex in Victorville, California, where the government recently sent 1,000 immigration detainees despite workers’ concerns about inadequate medical care, are speaking out about worsening conditions as infectious diseases continue to multiply.

HuffPost revealed last week that staff members were concerned about the unsafe conditions, which had resulted in 10 cases of scabies and one case of chickenpox. Now the outbreak of scabies, a highly infectious skin condition, has more than tripled ― spreading to at least 38 detainees. And, according to a letter sent to the staff June 30 and shown to HuffPost, an additional detainee has contracted chickenpox.

It’s gotten so bad that staffers are calling the units the two infected groups of detainees are housed in the “chickenpox unit” and “scabies unit,” and those exposed to chickenpox will live in a separate quarantined unit for 21 days, said John Kostelnik, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3969 and a case manager for the Victorville prison complex.

Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) toured Victorville on Monday morning with his district director and two staffers from the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). Takano said he was appalled when some of the detainees told him they had been unable to wash their clothes, underwear and bed linens since they arrived more than three weeks ago, and many had not been allowed to use the recreational facility at the complex northeast of Los Angeles. Several did not understand why they were being held in a prison.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/victorville-prison-detainees-medical-crisis_us_5b3abde8e4b07b827cb9ed38

[Girard442]

1. People don't get it. When you build concentration camps, you get the whole package.

Disease, brutality, deaths, coverups. You get it all.

[workinclasszero]

8. All its gonna take is a couple of guard getting smallpox or scabies and taking it home to the family

https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/ss/slideshow-scabies-overview

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/chickenpox/symptoms-causes/syc-20351282

Maybe the public will take notice then.

[Girard442]

9. Unfortunately, the response might be more like Patton's:

That there are problems in the camps because of the low quality of people being sent there.

[workinclasszero]

10. I think the guard union should sue Trump's gubbermint or ICE

If that's possible, for unsafe working conditions.

[Crunchy Frog]

12. No more smallpox. That's not a risk.

Chickenpox maybe, though most people in this country will be immune, either due to having had it, or being vaccinated.

Could be all kinds of other things lurking in those populations though. They mostly come from, and have been living in, harsh 3rd world conditions.

[spanone]

2. Soon, no one will have any desire to come to this country. they will seek asylum elsewhere.

[Hekate]

3. Where? How?

[Solly Mack]

4. According to MSNBC it's down 12% since Trump was installed.

People seeking to come here.


I don't recall where he got the numbers. (Velshi)

[Tipperary]

7. Well, that is what the dotard wants.

Ugh.

[Wellstone ruled]

5. Yesterday it was well over

hundred degrees in Victorville.

[Solly Mack]

6. Not many Americans seem to care, in my experience, about people in prison - moving

immigration "detainees" to a federal prison seems to be a move intended to glom onto that lack of caring about prisoners and their treatment.

That people not paying attention will think immigrants/federal prison/must be a reason and that's as far as their thought process will go.

There will be people keeping track, of course, as the article shows - but to a lot of the public...out of sight, out of mind.

[suffragette]

11. You raise a very good point.

[Solly Mack]

13. It's a humanitarian crisis - both in and out - that doesn't look to get any better.

I don't trust the numbers coming from the government on how many people - either adults or children - being held.

[suffragette]

14. Yes, it is. And yes, the numbers seem off and it seems that many more are being held than the

government is reporting.