Suit accuses Virginia Beach jail of wrongful death

NORFOLK

The family of a man who died at the Virginia Beach jail has filed a wrongful death suit against the sheriff and the jail medical staff.

The case alleges shoddy medical care, accusations similar to those raised by the family of another deceased jail inmate, Jacquelynn Diane Schwartz.

Douglas P. Poole entered the jail Oct. 29, 2010, to serve a 10-day sentence for driving with a suspended driver's license. Five days later he was rushed to the hospital, where he died. He was 54.

When he arrived in the jail, he told a nurse that he suffered from diabetes and hypertension and that he required certain medications, according to the suit. It says he didn't receive any meds for four days, and he was given insulin but nothing to control his hypertension.

The afternoon of Nov. 3, Poole reported to jail staff that he was had severe pain in an eye. He was unsteady on his feet and sweating. He then collapsed and struck his head on a table, the suit says.

He was taken to the infirmary, where the medical staff inferred "that he was malingering," the lawsuit states. When he was taken back to his cell, a deputy, a doctor and nurses told other inmates that Poole was "faking blindness," it says.

Poole later reported that he felt nauseated and he again fainted and remained unconscious for 15 minutes. When he tried to rise, he struck his head on a toilet and lost consciousness again, the suit says.

"The inmates in his cell block began frantically banging on the window and the deputies only then removed him from the block," the lawsuit says. At the infirmary, Poole's blood pressure was recorded as 197 over 90, which is high. Jail staff called 911, and Poole was taken to the nearby emergency room in handcuffs.

He was transferred to Virginia Beach General Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a brain hemorrhage. He was declared brain-dead Nov. 4 and pronounced dead Nov. 7, according to the lawsuit and his obituary that appeared in The Pilot.

The lawsuit, which seeks $5 million, alleges "deliberate indifference" to Poole's condition by the medical and jail staff. His family is suing in federal court under the Eighth and 14th amendments, which prohibit cruel and unusual punishment and deprivation of life and liberty, respectively.

The suit, filed by Poole's sister, Evelyn Sawyer of Norfolk, names as defendants Sheriff Ken Stolle; Conmed Healthcare Management, which runs the jail's medical facility; and several members of the medical staff.

Stolle and Conmed's public relations official did not return calls for comment.

The suit alleges a history of inadequate medical care at the Beach jail, which houses some 1,100 inmates on any given day. Conmed took over the jail's medical contract last October, the same month Poole entered the facility.

For 25 years, the jail's medical staff was run by Correctional Medical Services, a St. Louis-based company that came under repeated criticism for shoddy care. The state of Virginia fined the company $900,000 in 2000 for providing inadequate care to inmates.

The lawsuit says Conmed simply retained most of the same medical staff that Correctional Medical Services used.

One doctor named in the suit, Abdul Jamaludeen, who treated Poole, is the same doctor who treated Kathy Kearns, an inmate who died in 2001 from liver failure. The Kearns family sued as well, but lost in federal court.

The family of Schwartz, a Yorktown woman who died at the jail last month after choking on a wrist band, also raised questions about the quality of medical care but have so far held off on suing. A family member complained that the staff should have called an ambulance when Schwartz became erratic in her cell and that she never should have been left alone.

Conmed and members of its medical staff frequently are sued by inmates at jails that the company has contracts with. A check of suits filed in federal court here against the company in recent years shows that it has not lost a case. Most are thrown out as frivolous.

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com