A Mississippi prison denied medical treatment to an incarcerated woman with breast cancer, leaving her condition undiagnosed for years until the disease spread to other parts of her body and became terminal, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
Susie Balfour, 62, claims that Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) medical officials knew she might have cancer as early as May 2018, but did not perform a biopsy until November 2021, a month before she was released from prison. It wasn’t until January 2022, after she left an MDOC facility, that a doctor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center diagnosed her with stage four breast cancer, according to her federal complaint.
Her lawsuit and medical records paint a picture of a prison health care system that purposefully delayed life-saving health care and repeatedly failed for years to make follow-up appointments recommended by MDOC-contracted physicians.
Advocates for incarcerated people in Mississippi say Balfour’s experience is common. Her attorneys allege that there are at least 15 others incarcerated at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, her former prison, who have cancer and are not receiving necessary treatment.
“I want to hold them accountable for what they did to me,” Balfour said in an interview from her home in Memphis last week. “Being there alone, I was afraid I was going to die because I’ve seen so many others die because they couldn’t get the proper care they needed.”
Her lawsuit alleges cruel and unusual punishment and was filed against a number of MDOC contractors, including Wexford Health Resources And Centurion Healthprivate healthcare companies that do confronted controversies about them treatment of incarcerated patients in Mississippi.
Balfour’s concerns about possible breast cancer began when her prison gave her a mammogram in June 2011; her doctor said there were “benign microcalcifications in both breasts” and recommended a one-year follow-up, records show.
But Wexford, the medical provider at her prison at the time, did not schedule another screening until January 2013, even though she frequently complained of pain, tenderness and “lumps” in her breasts, according to her complaint. In 2013, her doctor wrote that the mammogram again showed “benign-appearing calcifications” and recommended additional testing to determine whether lesions might be present, her records show.
However, Wexford did not perform a follow-up evaluation and it was not until January 2016, three years later, that she had another mammogram with Centurion. supervise now MDOC health care, her complaint says. This time, doctors reported that the number of calcifications had increased and recommended a six-month follow-up, but she says she has not been seen for more than two years.
During her subsequent mammograms in May 2018, November 2019, and March 2021, doctors noted continued increasing calcifications but still considered them “probably benign.” However, Balfour’s attorneys say the doctors’ billing records show they provided services related to “malignant breast neoplasm,” indicating they may have already detected cancer. The doctors also repeatedly noted that their benign findings “should not discourage follow-up or biopsy.” It wasn’t until November 2021 that she actually received a biopsy, which revealed cancer cells. A third company, VitalCore Health Strategiestook over MDOC care in 2020.
After her release from prison, medical experts reviewed her files for her lawyers and reported that her previous mammograms also showed signs of cancer, said Andrew Tominello, one of her lawyers. Balfour said her cancer has spread to her lymph nodes, thoracic spine, bones and her liver.
The failure to diagnose and treat her cancer was part of a pattern of MDOC and health care providers disbelieving incarcerated people. Balfour said: “They always think everyone is pretending. How can you tell me that something that is happening in my body is not happening?”
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The repeated refusal to get her a mammogram in a timely manner was indefensible, Tominello said: “They postponed it over and over again, and they shouldn’t be able to get away with that.” He said that if Balfour’s sister-in-law had not continually advocated for her, “they probably would have tried to sweep it under the rug and hope she died.”
The lawsuit also alleges that Balfour and others were forced to clean the prison with chemicals linked to cancer, including glyphosate, the herbicide chemical. The captured people were left without protective equipment while exposed to chemicals and when mixing harsh chemicals into toxic combinations, the complaint said.
Pauline Rogers, co-founder of Reaching and Educating for Community Hope (Rech), a Mississippi organization that helps women come home from prison, said hardship behind bars affects people’s health: fighting – for a toothbrush, for toilet paper, for sanitary towels, for decent water and your life is no different. You have to fight for a mammogram or something as simple as glasses.”
Wexford And Centurion have both been accused of allowing preventable deaths of incarcerated people through inadequate care. Tominello said they function like traditional insurance companies, “except they can deny your claim and you have no recourse. And just like the traditional insurance model, the less they have to pay out in claims, the more they make. It’s the same model, but they have less supervision.”
Balfour served 33 years on a murder conviction, which was eventually overturned and was subsequently sentenced to manslaughter. She said she wanted to bring the case in hopes it would help her friends who are stuck and struggling to access basic care.
“I try to live every day like it’s my last,” she said. “And as long as I live, I’m going to fight.”
The MDOC, Wexford, Centurion and VitalCore did not immediately respond to questions Wednesday.