Langlade County Jail – former inmate complaint
I realize that being an ex-inmate at the jail discredits me, since no one wants to trust or believe someone with a criminal record. I have never understood this type of thinking, but I know it exists. If someone drove drunk, does that make them a liar? If someone got into a bar fight, does that make them a liar? Do you have family members or friends who have been in jail? Are they liars? In order to make my point here, just because society labels convicts as liars, doesn’t mean that they are.
With that said, I will tell my story about the problems with the Langlade County Jail and their procedures. I realize that being in jail strips your equal rights for the most part, but, according to the laws of this country, inmates are still to be treated humanely. One of those laws also states that inmates have the right to be free of pain.
At one point, I was required to be jailed with huber privileges and before my stay I was to contact the jail nurse about any current prescriptions that I would need while I was there. While this was fine by me, after talking with the nurse, I was told that I could not receive my pain medication because the jail had “too many problems with it”. This medication was Vicodin and it was prescribed to me by my physician. I was confused as to what she meant, well, apparently after speaking more with her, it came to my attention that the “problems” she was referring to was the medication “disappearing” while in the jail. So, in other words, people who work at the jail are stealing Vicodin from the inmates. This totally shocked me! Instead of dealing with the problem of their employees, they had decided not to give out pain medication to the inmates. How could this be? What kind of government operated facility was this?
So, needless to say, while I was an inmate, I had to go without my prescribed medication. So much for being pain free! When I was set to be released, another problem arose. When I had gone in, I had given the nurse the Vicodin that I had, along with Blood Pressure pills, and cholesterol pills. When I was released, all my medications were there, EXCEPT for the Vicodin that I had brought in. Since I was released at midnight, I would have to wait until the next day to contact the nurse about this. So, that is what I did and guess what she said!? Your Vicodin was in with your other medications and she was accusing me of lying about it. Once again I found this to be outrageous. Either the nurse didn’t put the Vicodin in with my other meds, or someone took them from the time she packed them up to when I was released. Needless to say, nothing ever came of this. Who would believe me over the jail nurse, right?
It is just outrageous to me that they can get away with this sort of thing. You would think they would want to catch whoever is stealing meds in the jail – but, apparently not. They would rather just not give you your prescriptions than to deal with the real problem.
There was another guy that was in my cell during my stay who also had pain meds prescribed to him and they wouldn’t give him his either. He was bold enough to throw a fit about it, go to the emergency room and get more. He threatened the nurse and called his own doctor, who then talked to the nurse and eventually the guy did get his pain meds given to him.
I just do not understand how the nurse at the jail can make the decision as to whether or not you will get your prescribed medications? She is not a Doctor and she shouldn’t be acting like one.
I would love to read comments on this and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if other former inmates have had similar issues.
To Red – as a former correctional officer in Langlade County, I want to give you kudos. You sound like a very intelligent, level-headed person and I give you all the credit in the world for turning your life around…and adding some common-sense perspective to this forum!