JACKSON, ma’am. — Inmates at a Mississippi prison were forced to mix harsh cleaning agents without protective equipment, with one claiming she later contracted terminal cancer and was denied timely medical care, a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges.
Susan Balfour, 62, was held at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility for 33 years until her release in December 2021. Inmates were forced to clean the facility, without protective equipment, with chemicals that could cause cancer, Balfour’s lawsuit said.
Balfour contracted terminal breast cancer, a condition that health care providers at the prison failed to identify years ago because they could save money by not providing necessary medical tests and treatments, the lawsuit filed in the U.S. Southern District of Mississippi alleges.
“I feel betrayed by our system for failing to provide me with timely medical care. I feel hopeless, I feel angry, I feel bitter. I feel shock and disbelief that this is happening to me at a time when I’m getting ready to get out of prison,” Balfour said in an interview on Tuesday. “It’s too much to process, that this is happening to me.”
The companies contracted to provide health care to inmates at the facility — Wexford Health Sources, Centurion Health and VitalCore — delayed or did not schedule follow-up cancer screenings for Balfour even though they were recommended by prison doctors, the lawsuit said.
All three companies did not immediately respond to email and phone messages seeking comment. A spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Corrections said the agency would not comment on active litigation.
The lawsuit, which seeks damages in an amount to be determined at trial, says at least 15 other unidentified people incarcerated in the jail have cancer and are not receiving life-saving care.
One of Balfour’s attorneys, Drew Tominello, said in an interview that her attorneys had not conclusively determined that exposure to the chemicals caused Balfour’s cancer. But the lawsuit focuses on what they say are significant delays and denials of medical treatment that could have caught her cancer earlier.
Incentives in the companies’ contracts with the state Department of Corrections encouraged cost savings by reducing outpatient referrals and distorting doctors’ independent clinical judgments, the lawsuit alleges.
Balfour was initially convicted of the murder of a police officer and sentenced to death, but that conviction was later overturned in 1992 after the Mississippi Supreme Court found that her constitutional rights had been violated during her trial. She later reached a plea deal on a reduced charge, Tominello said.
Balfour’s lawyers say her cancer was apparent more than a decade ago. After she was released in 2021, an outpatient doctor performed a mammogram that revealed she had stage four breast cancer, the lawsuit said.
Pauline Rogers, co-founder of the Rech Foundation, an organization that helps formerly incarcerated people, called the prison’s alleged cleaning protocols “a clear violation of basic human rights.”
“These are people who deserve a second chance at life,” Rogers said. “Instead, these companies withhold care to profit from the women they leave behind to get sick and die.”
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Michael Goldberg is a staff member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.