Electronic trail incriminates government in detainee's cancer death Nick Langewis

Published: Sunday May 11, 2008



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Print This Email This Damning electronic evidence has been brought to light that incriminates the federal government in the neglect of a detainee in the months preceding his cancer death. Having fled his native El Salvador with his family at age 10, Francisco Castaneda, 36, was an illegal immigrant, though he had lived in Los Angeles for close to 25 years, and fathered his daughter Vanessa, before a drug possession conviction found him incarcerated and facing deportation. In March of 2006, while Castaneda was in custody, his assigned doctor wanted him immediately admitted to a hospital and a biopsy done on a painful lesion on his penis, suspicious that it was cancerous. Division of Immigration Health Services refused the request, seeking more "cost-effective" treatment options. An emergency circumcision and biopsy of the lesion, later recommended by a urologist, were refused as "elective" treatment, according to Castaneda's testimony to Congress on October 4, 2007. The cancer would go untreated throughout 2006, despite repeated requests for help, and it had visibly spread by the end of the year. In July of 2006, hoping to avoid trouble at an upcoming audit, the Washington Post reports that physician's assistant David Lusche at the Otay Mesa facility, where Castaneda was being held, e-mailed a colleague to "amend" an unheeded grievance to something other than "grievance not resolved," which would raise concern with the auditors. "But it is true, unfortunately," responded Anthony Walker the next day; "this is a case where his grievance is correct and I don't blame the detainee." Shortly before a biopsy would finally be performed, due to pressure from the ACLU, Castaneda was hastily released before the February 2007 appointment. Though the only treatment he ever received was in the form of pain pills, antihistamines and extra underwear, DIHS medical director Timothy T. Shack called the care given Mr. Castaneda "timely and appropriate." Castaneda's penis was amputated after the eventual diagnosis of invasive squamous cell carcinoma, and he later died on February 16, 2008. US District Judge Dean D. Pregerson refused the government's motion to dismiss the Castaneda family's lawsuit in March, saying that the government knowingly let a sick man in pain suffer as his condition worsened. "Defendants' own records bespeak of conduct that transcends negligence by miles," Pregerson's ruling reads. "It bespeaks of conduct that, if true, should be taught to every law student as conduct for which the moniker 'cruel' is inadequate." "I had to be here today," Mr. Castaneda told Congress, "because I am not the only one who didn't get the medical care I needed. It was routine for detainees to have to wait weeks or months to get even basic care. Who knows how many tragic endings can be avoided if ICE will only remember that, regardless of why a person is in detention and regardless of where they will end up, they are still human and deserve basic, humane medical care."