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<\/p>\nThe last time Barbara Holmes visited her son Justus at Coxsackie Correctional in Greene County, she didn\u2019t recognize him. He\u2019d lost 30 pounds, she says, from an alarming gastrointestinal issue he\u2019s had for a year.<\/p>\n
Despite repeated pleas for an appointment to see a doctor, he still hasn\u2019t seen one.<\/p>\n
While on the phone with his mother and a friend on April 13, Justus stopped responding, and his mother began to record what she could hear on the other side. She shared that recording with Spectrum News 1.<\/p>\n
About five minutes after he stopped responding, another voice was heard on the recording. \u201cHolmes!\u201d someone said, then beats on a door. \u201cOh s—, he\u2019s lying in his own puke.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a three-way call and [correction officers] Narcaned him seven times and he had three seizures,\u201d Barbara Holmes said in a recent interview, relaying information guards passed onto her. \u201cAnd I was like, \u2018What would you Narcan him for? He’s not a drug addict. He\u2019s sick.\u2019 And he said he wasn\u2019t aware of that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inmates are required to follow the sick call process to initiate requests for medical services by filling out Form 3160.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Scaife, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, an organization tasked with overseeing the state prison system, said medical concerns are the number one thing they hear about from individuals who are incarcerated.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cStaffing for individuals to be transported to an outside hospital \u2014 any visit with a specialist \u2014 is going to require special transport, which is staff intensive,\u201d Scaife said. \u201cA number of people are complaining that they have been waiting very long to get specialty care,\u201d Scaife said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Healthcare for the prison population comes with challenges involving a number of factors, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople in prisons have higher rates of chronic conditions than members of the general public. All of these things combined make for a very difficult situation for people with medical needs in prisons and people are very concerned about not getting enough timely, quality medical attention,\u201d Scaife said.<\/p>\n
Since experiencing what he said were seizures, Holmes was taken to an outside hospital to be examined by a doctor but wasn\u2019t given treatment for his gastrointestinal issues, his mother said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Justus Holmes prior to when he began experiencing symptoms. (Photo courtesy of Barbara Holmes)<\/p>\n
On May 26, a similar event happened where facility staff gave him naloxone five times.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are no negative effects from giving naloxone to someone not suffering from an overdose.<\/p>\n
Justus, 32 of Syracuse, has been incarcerated since 2020, sentenced to 15 years for a non-fatal shooting in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was given a sentence to do his time and come back to be a productive citizen like he was before he went in,\u201d his mother said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Holmes still has not seen a doctor regarding his symptoms and sometimes is too weak to see his mother when she gets to come for visits. It has been stressful for her and the rest of their family, she said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want him to go through that. No family wants their relative to go through nothing like that in there. It\u2019s hard enough. You have to get them a package and commissary money and then you have to worry about their health on top of their well-being. No, it\u2019s too much,\u201d Holmes said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last week, Holmes was reportedly scheduled to see a doctor but never did because a nurse told his mother that there were \u201cinsufficient escort officers available to transport him to the appointments.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The entrance to Coxsackie Correctional Facility. (Emily Kenny\/Spectrum News 1)<\/p>\n
Spectrum News visited Holmes at Coxsackie Correctional, and he said since his mother visited him last, he has lost 15 more pounds for a total of 45 pounds. Since February, he has put in 20 sick calls and still has yet to be seen by a provider.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSome days are more difficult than others,\u201d Holmes said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said whenever he eats or drinks his stomach hurts so prior to the visit, he did not eat or drink anything. The pain can sometimes be a \u201cten out of ten,\u201d Holmes said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat if it was happening to you? It\u2019s judgement on them to see us as less than human, it\u2019s not right. I\u2019m still a human,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Holmes said his biggest concern is that this will cause long-term damage to his body and that he will continue to deal with this even after his release.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said they cannot comment on incarcerated individuals’ medical treatment but provided the following statement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll incarcerated individuals receive the community standard of care, have the opportunity to see a medical professional through the facility\u2019s sick-call procedure, and are transported to a local hospital when their medical needs are beyond the scope of what can be provided in the facility. DOCCS has agreements with healthcare providers and specialists at major hospitals across the state, as well as agreements with several smaller hospitals in close proximity to its facilities to ensure the medical needs of incarcerated individuals are met,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
In the department\u2019s Health Care Services policy manual, it requires on-site medical services to be available to incarcerated individuals at least five days per week. It does not specify how quickly medical providers should respond to sick calls.<\/p>\n
\u201cRoutine sick call requests are triaged seven days per week and are addressed and scheduled based on priority,\u201d the policy manual reads. \u201cA qualified health care professional will evaluate incarcerated individuals at sick call in accordance with a standardized, problem-oriented method of nursing evaluation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The New York state Commission of Corrections provides reports on every death that occurs in the prison system and shares them publicly on its website. Of the reports posted as of June 9, 14 deaths point to a problem with the medical care provided that contributed to the inmates\u2019 deaths.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Data from the CANY said that deaths in the New York prison system have reached a six-year high in 2026. Between Jan. 1 and April 30, 57 inmates have died. Green Haven Correctional Facility increased from seven deaths in 2024 to 19 deaths for the period May 2025 to April 2026. Updated data through June 1 from DOCCS says 77 inmates have died in 2026.<\/p>\n
A representative of CANY said it\u2019s difficult to draw a correlation between a rise in the number of deaths and a lack of medical care because of the extended wait times it takes for medical examiners to determine the cause of death. According to DOCCS, the cause of 53 of the 77 deaths that have occurred this year are still classified as \u201cunknown.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2022, CANY visited Coxsackie Correctional Facility, where Holmes is currently being held, for a monitoring visit. In response to a conducted survey, 41.7% of inmates said it took longer than one month to get a response to their medical requests. Data from CANY shows that Marcy Correctional has the highest rate of reported unaddressed medical problems at 87%, followed by Collins Correctional at 73%, Woodbourne Correctional at 67% and Washington and Mid-State Correctional at 57% of inmates reporting this concern.<\/p>\n
A brother with cancer\u00a0<\/p>\n
General medical care can be a challenge for the prison population, but Scaife said getting specialty care is even more difficult.<\/p>\n
Jose \u2018Jay\u2019 Rodriguez, 44 of Suffolk County, is currently being held at Green Haven Correctional Facility. In 2022, he reported what he believed was a cyst on his eyelid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t know that four years later, the small mass would lead to doctors removing his left eye after finally discovering squamous cell carcinoma, a common skin cancer, had spread.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn my way to lose my eye, I was a city kid, so on that drive to Sloan Kettering, the one thing I did was I covered my right eye, my good eye,\u201d he said in a phone interview. “I said the last thing I\u2019m gonna see with this eye is the Hudson River. Even though it was blurry.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Late last month, four years after the mass appeared, Rodriguez was taken from Green Haven Correctional Facility to Sloan Kettering, a hospital in New York City, where they removed his left eye. The operation happened after years of advocating for himself to get treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt started off with just a little lump in the eye and then it just kind of continued to progressively get worse, and as it got worse, I kept on complaining and complaining and complaining. Nothing was ever done,\u201d Rodriguez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He has been incarcerated since 2016 and said he has seen many individuals go through delays in medical care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to call it medical genocide. That\u2019s what happens in the living facilities. Not only do they deny us adequate medical care, but they restrict our access to things that keep us healthy,\u201d Rodriguez said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to his medical records that his sister provided to Spectrum News 1, Rodriguez was seen in March 2025 with irritation in his eye because when the mass \u201cpopped,\u201d his eyelid turned inward and his eyelashes rubbed against his eyeball. The doctor removed his eyelashes, but he returned twice more last year for continued irritation, including in October, when doctors took a biopsy that confirmed he had cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Jose Rodriguez after his eye was removed. (Photo courtesy Stephanie Harris)<\/p>\n
Jessica Kruger, a professor of public health at University at Buffalo, said there are many factors that lead to the increase in chronic conditions among this population of people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst is the stress people are under when they\u2019re incarcerated, and we know stress is directly related to many chronic diseases and also reduces people\u2019s immunity. Secondly, you\u2019re in a pretty confined area, so infectious disease can spread,\u201d Kruger said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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