When someone in jail needs surgery, it’s no simple operation

Darrell Palmer, Jr., lays for a portrait in UPMC Magee-Women’s Hospital days after surgery for a ventral hernia, Sunday, March 17, 2024, in South Oakland. The surgery had been repeatedly scheduled, but never conducted, while he was incarcerated in the Allegheny County Jail. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource) A few dozen times a year, someone held in the Allegheny County Jail gets surgery. Getting medical attention, staff approval, transportation and the needed procedure can be a painful process. by Jordana Rosenfeld, PublicSource In October, Darrell Palmer, Jr., wrote on a grievance form to Allegheny County Jail administrators: “I need to know the procedure for if I was to die in here?”& He was suffering from a large ventral hernia that had become unbearably painful while incarcerated from March 2021 to November 2022 and then again from August to October 2023. The hernia looked like “a baby arm sticking out of his stomach,” according to Brian Englert, the correctional officers’ union president. Palmer recalled the intense pain.& “Imagine your intestines coming out of your abdominal wall with the only thing holding it in is this much skin … So the pain never goes away, it’s a constant thing. Sometimes more, sometimes less,”...