PHS DEFENDS SERVICE to Lee County Jail inmates
http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/fci/leecountyphs.html

PENDING LAWSUITS
http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/fci/leecountylawsuits.html

LEE COUNTY MEDICINE
http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/fci/leecountymedicine.html

From: SWFLBeginnings@aol.com
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 19:12:33 EST
To: mhoyem@news-press.com
Subject: you're on this website now...Re: Lee County JAIL

This is to ask you to check this site out: LEE COUNTY JAIL, Florida, jail, prison  http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/prison/leecounty.html  One article is missing, but I'm sure it will be included soon.

We are standing behind you as you investigate.  You're a brave man to do this.
Thanks,
Betty

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Subj: Re: you're on this website now... Re: Lee County JAIL
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 10:30:52 -0500
From: mhoyem@news-press.com
To: SWFLBeginnings@aol.com 
Sent from the Internet

Thanks. Even if someone's in jail, they deserve decent health care. When people are behind bars, they're at the mercy of the people in charge. Everybody's entitled to their rights.

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June 26, 2004 News Press
A Bonita Springs man is suing Lee County sheriff's officials and the company that provides jail medical services, claiming officials failed to provide appropriate medical care to his son while he was in jail.  Roger Barnhart Sr.'s son, Roger Barnhart, 42, died about 10 hours after being released from custody on a DUI charge.  The lawsuit claims jail officials failed and refused to provide appropriate medical care. Barnhart was not "unlawfully under the influence of alcohol but rather was suffering from an adverse reaction to prescribed medication and/or psychiatric or medical illness," the lawsuit states.

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September 16, 2004 News Press
The day before Gregory Kokolakis took his own life, he called his mother from the Lee County Stockade in agony. "He called me crying," said his mother, Adrienne Croom. "He said, "I am in so much pain. I can't stand it.' " Kokolakis, 21, wasn't allowed access to his methadone, an opiate used by doctors to help addicts off painkillers. "He said 'Mom, my medication is in my property, and they won't give it to me,' " Croom recalled Wednesday. On Sept. 7, Kokolakis wrapped a sheet around his neck, tied it to an air vent in the stockade barracks and attempted to hang himself. He died five days later. Kokolakis was the third inmate to commit suicide since July. The Lee County Jail has a contract with Tennessee-based Prison Health Services Inc. to provide medical treatment, including treating inmates' withdrawal from narcotics

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October 16, 2004 Naples News
Just three days after her 39th birthday, Michelle Goebert lost a baby she repeatedly tried to save while imprisoned at the Lee County jail in 2001. In a span of 14 days after her Oct. 19, 2001, arrest, Goebert asked for medical help or to visit an obstetrician because she was leaking amniotic fluid and feared for the life of her unborn child. Medical staff at the jail took her to a local hospital too late, Goebert contends, and the 41-year-old Lee County woman now seeks an unspecified amount in damages in a federal civil rights and negligence lawsuit filed Thursday at the U.S. District Courthouse in Fort Myers.

From Nov. 19 until Nov. 30, 2001, Goebert leaked amniotic fluid and asked daily to see a prison doctor or go to an outside hospital, according to the suit against the Lee County Sheriff's Office, Sheriff Rod Shoap, Capt. Thomas P. Weaver, Prison Health Services Inc., EMSA Correctional Care Inc., doctor David F. Brown, nurse Sandee Malanoski and Lee County government. Taken to the hospital on her birthday, Nov. 30, doctors there said the baby's chances of surviving were slim because Goebert lost so much amniotic fluid, the suit says. Her child died Dec. 3.

January 29, 2005 Naples Daily News
Lee County has been dropped from a federal lawsuit filed in fall by a former Lee County Jail inmate who said unnecessary delays in medical help there caused her to miscarry. The civil suit, filed in October in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers, says that during 11 days in 2001, Michelle Goebert leaked amniotic fluid while jailed in Fort Myers. On the 11th day she was hospitalized, and three days later the baby died, according to the suit. U.S. District Judge John E. Steele ruled Thursday that Lee County could be dismissed from the suit, saying the county was not responsible for what Goebert contends happened. "The sheriff, and not the defendant Lee County, has the responsibility to operate the Lee County Jail, and funding by the county does not affect this responsibility," Steele said in the order.

Lee County Jail
Lee, Florida
PHS
April 14, 2005 Naples Daily News
A federal judge ruled Wednesday to drop the Lee County Sheriff's Office from a lawsuit filed against it by a former inmate who contends she miscarried after leaking amniotic fluid while jailed. Michelle Goebert, 42, filed suit in October in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers against the Sheriff's Office and sheriff, Capt. Thomas P. Weaver, Lee County, Prison Health Services Inc., EMSA Correctional Care Inc., Dr. David F. Brown, and nurse Sandee Malanoski, saying that spanning 11 days in 2001, she leaked amniotic fluid while in the Lee County Jail in Fort Myers. On the 11th day she was hospitalized and, three days later, her baby died, according to the suit.

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November 23, 2004 Naples News
Lawyers for the state's jail medical care providers are asking a federal judge to toss out a lawsuit brought by an Estero firefighter's father after the man died one day after being jailed. Roger H. Barnhart Sr., of Bonita Springs, filed suit in May against Prison Health Services, Lee County Sheriff Rod Shoap, his department and jail medical staff after Barnhart's 42-year-old son died the day after being jailed on a drunken driving charge. The elder Barnhart's suit contends that Roger H. Barnhart's death resulted from medical negligence and a violation of his civil rights. Prison Health Services attorney Gregg Toomey said the elder Barnhart's civil rights complaint against the company should be dismissed because his attorneys haven't proven his son's right to medical treatment and diagnoses was violated.

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December 12, 2004 News-Press
A Lee County sheriff's deputy arrested Ralph Scheibel on March 7 at Gulf Coast Hospital and took him to jail, where he had a heart attack the same day and died. His death was followed by eight more inmate deaths — three men who committed suicide, two who died of complications from HIV, two more heart attack victims and Byron Black, 39, who died Nov. 27 after being pepper-sprayed and Tasered while struggling with guards. But Sheriff-elect Mike Scott said he is concerned about the jail — and the number of deaths — and plans to make changes when he takes office in January. Black's cause of death may not be determined for weeks. The District 21 Medical Examiner's Office is awaiting toxicology results before releasing a finding. The private company that performs medical care at the jail is Prison Health Services, which is based in Brentwood, Tenn., and is the largest provider of inmate health care in the nation.  Prison Health Services is supposed to screen inmates entering the jail for medical conditions that need monitoring. Scott said he will review Prison Health Services' contract. But neither he nor Ferrante said they could find fault with the company when they're "on the outside looking in."

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January 17, 2005 Naples Daily News
An HIV-positive prison inmate is suing the Lee County Sheriff's Office and jail's medical care provider, saying it took too long to receive the life-sustaining drug cocktail his doctors prescribed. And to compensate him, he wants $10 million. Jimmy D. Hatten, 41, was remanded into custody after a March 30, 2004. When he was booked into the Lee County Jail, he told medical staff from Prison Health Services he needed the medications and how to reach his doctors, Hatten said in his suit. He said he suffered facial swelling, a fever, bleeding and an infection because he didn't receive his medication, the suit said.