Infected, Incarcerated—and Coming to an ICU Near You?
Without ventilators, prisons lean on local hospitals to care for coronavirus victims.
By the time Dr. John Walsh raised the alarm in late March, his hospital in Joliet, Illinois, was almost out of ventilators. Sick prisoners from a nearby state prison kept arriving in the emergency room, requiring nine ventilators and overwhelming the private 480-bed AMITA Health St. Joseph Medical Center. Walsh went on television to plead for help with what he called a COVID-19 disaster.
The U.S. Constitution requires prison systems to provide medical care for the people
