Larry
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Larry is the prisoner John Kiriakou offers as the end point of the medical system at FCI Loretto. He did not know him well, Larry lived near the chapel where Kiriakou worked as an orderly, so theirs was a "hey Larry, how you doing" relationship.

Passing him on the way to work one day, Kiriakou saw him visibly hunched over and asked whether he was all right. Larry's back had been killing him for over a year; he had been to sick call that morning, where it was shrugged off and he was given the usual Tylenol.

A few weeks later he was walking with a cane. Kiriakou told him he needed heavyweight help and to have his family call their congressman, but, he notes, actually finding that kind of help is beyond most people, and it was beyond Larry.

The chaplain

At a chapel staff meeting the chaplain mentioned that he intended to look in on Larry, who by then had gone from a cane to a walker to a wheelchair. Kiriakou told him about the year of unanswered complaints and asked him to intervene. To his great credit, Kiriakou says, the chaplain did: he went to the medical unit and demanded Larry be taken to an outside hospital for testing.

Another two weeks passed before the regional medical office agreed to pay for it. Larry was taken to a hospital, given an MRI, and diagnosed with stage four cancer of the spine.

He was sent back to Loretto and died in his bunk two weeks later, having received no treatment of any kind except Tylenol, and having never been considered for compassionate release. "In a lot of ways Larry was ignored to death."

Kiriakou's conclusion is put as a floor rather than an argument: there are genuinely bad people at Loretto, but none of them had been sentenced to death, "not literally anyway", and they deserve at least basic medical care, which the Bureau of Prisons is legally obliged to provide.

See also

- Medical care in federal prison
- FCI Loretto
- Frank's heart attack
- Administrative remedy process
