Big Victory For Female Prisoners’ Rights
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Held & Hines’ Wins Big Victory in Court Allowing Female Prisoners’ Rights Class-Action Lawsuit To Move Forward
Held & Hines, LLP won a another big decision today regarding female prisoner’s rights in NYC jails. Held & Hines, LLP filed a class-action lawsuit against NYC and Health and Hospital Corp. for failing to protect women who are incarcerated in their prisons. The AMA guidelines and preferred and ethical practice is for female prisoners to have female chaperone/escort or a female physician when seeking medical treatment in the prison system. The Health and Hospital Corp. has a policy that follows the AMA guidelines to both protect women (from being sexually assaulted or raped) by medical personnel working in the prison and to allow women to comply with their religious beliefs (by being examined and treated by a female physician). The defendants NYC and Health and Hospital Corporation have ignored this policy and as a result, incarcerated women have been given a very difficult choice- forego medical treatment when needed or get medical care without a female chaperone or female doctor and risk getting sexually assaulted and/or raped. Due to lack of compliance with said policy and guidelines some women have been raped and others have chosen to forego medical care when needed.
After filing said class-action lawsuit, the defendants moved to dismiss the case. The Court denied said motion and is allowing the case to move forward and to seek certification as a class. This is a huge victory for all women incarcerated in NYC prison.
See K.A. et al vs. City of New York et al, SDNY 18-cv-3858
Posted in: Civil Rights, Uncategorized
