The following is a report, received 12/7/24, from an individual incarcerated at Union Correctional Institution (UCI) in Florida and is shared at his request. NOTE: Matir Asurim contacted Centurion Health Care about the policy. Any information obtained will be shared as soon as a response is received. We are also looking into if/how outside advocacy might help those who are incarcerated receive more timely and effective dental care.
I was required to pull my own tooth while sitting in a dentist chair here at UCI. Let me first explain the scenario. I wear an upper partial which broke in March of 2024 while eating a bagel. I seen the dentist in late March who informed me that I needed a new partial, and he would first need to fill two teeth before taking impressions for my new partial. He refused to do the two fillings at the same appointment. So he spread these two appointments out over approximately a four month time period. Stalling the impressions to make my new partial.
In October of 2024 he finally did the impression. Not a week later I broke a back upper tooth once again eating a bagel. Yes maybe I should stop eating bagels. LOL. I immediately put in a sick call slip for which he did not respond too. Then on Monday December 2, 2024 I’m eating a sandwich and bag of chips, when all of a sudden a severe pain shoots through my tooth next to the gap where my partial would have been keeping the tooth secure, breaking the tooth up at the top of the base where the root is connected to the bone. I reached up and touched it to find it moving around. I informed my wife who contacted medical, I also turned in another sick call slip, and told the nurse that the dentist was ignoring these sick call slips.
On Thursday December 5, 2024 at 1:00 pm I had an appointment to the dentist. I walked in, sat down in the dental chair and showed him and his assistant the loose tooth, and explained that I had a second tooth that had broken. I also explained this would not have happened had I had my partial that should have been made months ago, which would have had all the teeth firmly secured in place. The dentist disagreed. And said “which one is the worst?” I said both hurt, but the loose tooth is causing the most pain when I try to eat. I said your going to take care of both of them right? He said no, “I can only do one.”
He said, looking at the loose tooth, “you should have pulled it your self.” His assistant agreed. I’m still inquiring why they can’t do both, which he didn’t have an explanation for. His assistant chimed in saying, if we do two teeth, we won’t have enough time for everyone.
The Sergeant sitting there watching said, you probably should have pulled it yourself. I said to the Sergeant, as I pulled on it showing him that it’s in there tight. I started pulling on it again really hard to show the Sergeant that it was still connected to the bone. It then cracked, causing a lot of pain, which made me stop what I was doing. The Sergeant said, “I heard it crack.” The dental assistant took an x-ray of the loose tooth, a few minutes later. The dentist and his assistant are running around trying to find keys to get into the x-ray room. While their doing that, I’m frustrated because they will only do one tooth at a time, when I’ve got pain in both teeth. So I reach in and get the best grip I can on this tooth, trying to ignore the pain, I push the tooth to one side, then the other and I pull with all my might trying to block the pain out, as I could hear it crack again as the tooth pulled away from the bone. You talk about pain! That was extremely painful!!!
The dentist and his assistant are still in the back room trying to find keys for doors and drawers, when I called out to him with a mouth full of blood saying I did it, I need something to spit in. The dentist didn’t hear me, so the Sergeant called out to the dentist, and said, “he pulled it.” The dentist come out, looked at the tooth in my hand, and turned on the suction device and placed it in my mouth sucking the blood out. He looked at the hole, stating, ” the tooth was infected.” I thought to myself, he should have been able to see that in the October appointment. Being that I pulled the tooth, he was now able to fill the other tooth instead of leaving me to suffer with a toothache for another month or two.
Bottom line is this, no one should have to go to such extremes to get proper dental care. I’m still nine months and counting without my partial. And its absolutely ridiculous to have to wait this long to have a partial made. But this is the result of incompetent contractors preying off of inmates, dragging treatment plans out, causing more damage to the prisoner’s teeth, so they can benefit with more work and more pay. This is cruel and unusual punishment at its best! Nothing is more miserable than a toothache! So just imagine, you have one tooth that’s aching, and another one broke that’s moving and causing unimaginable pain when your chewing, and the tooth is going one way and then the other with every bite, and now your having to choose which pain you can live with for the next month or two. Because that’s the decision they forced me to make! So I had no other alternative than to break that tooth away from the bone with nothing to numb the pain, and snatch it out. Which was what they recommended! Imagine that?
I also found out the next day during my physical therapy session on Friday December 6th while sharing this story with other prisoners at RMC, that this procedure of only working on one tooth at a time, is a state wide directive, that Centurion Health Care Incorporated has put in place. And this is a procedure that needs to be rescinded. For although this is lining the pockets of Centurion and their staff, its doing harm to the prisoner’s who are suffering at the hands of this greed for profit prison corporation. Welcome to the FDOC experience.
Ronald W. Clark Jr. December 7, 2024
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Image: abstract image showing single tooth cracked and crumbling. Credit: LionFive on pixabay
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