When Shane Veltkamp was booked into the Newaygo County Jail in July 2023, he had no problems eating, going to the bathroom or walking on his own.
Veltkamp was diagnosed with MS in the Newaygo County Jail, but both the jail and the prisons he was later sent to allegedly failed to give him treatment he, his defense attorney, his mother and his neurologist were begging for, according to a new lawsuit he filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Treatment issues associated with the condition can halt further progression of the disease.
By the time he was released from prison in October 2024, Veltkamp, now 31, was in a wheelchair, had lost half his vision and had full body tremors, his attorney, Lisa Esser-Weidenfeller said. His cellmate had to hold his tray at meals for him and help him after bowel movements, she said.
“For the rest of my life, I will bear the consequences of the ten months I spent asking for help and not getting it. Now I need a wheelchair, and I need help with many of the basic things I used to do on my own,” Veltkamp said in a statement. “I can’t eat on my own, walk on my own, or go to the bathroom on my own. I know this could have been avoided if anyone along the way had just picked up the phone when my neurologist repeatedly called and got my treatment started. I’m not looking for sympathy, I’m looking for these institutions, contracted for-profit healthcare companies, and their providers to answer for what they let happen to me, so it doesn’t happen to any other detainees.”
The Michigan Department of Corrections and the Newaygo County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment. For-profit companies handle medical care in prisons and jails. In the jail, it was Advanced Correctional Healthcare. Once Veltkamp was in prison, VitalCore took over his medical care. Neither Advanced Correctional Healthcare or VitalCore responded for comment.
Esser-Weidenfeller said Veltkamp’s case of medical neglect is one of the most egregious she’s ever seen.
“He can’t do anything, right? He can’t leave the jail. He can’t call the doctor’s office. He can’t get treatment,” Esser-Weidenfeller said. “He’s totally reliant on these healthcare providers and these healthcare companies to get him the treatment he needs.”
Esser-Weidenfeller said Veltkamp’s case is an example of the systemic problems in the prison health care system, something that has also come to light with the five deaths in the past three months at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, the state’s only women’s prison.
“The public is finally paying attention to what’s going on in this system, and we’re seeing a pattern here with these private, for-profit healthcare corporations that have been brought in by MDOC and other states that put profits ahead of healthcare for inmates and prisoners,” Esser-Weidenfeller said.
Less than 10 days after being booked into the Newaygo County Jail, Veltkamp started to experience left-sided numbness, according to the lawsuit. He’d had some symptoms of MS prior to being booked in jail, but he was in a bad state with drug use and was not getting care or treatment, Esser-Weidenfeller said.
Jail staff took him to the emergency room, thinking he was having a stroke, Esser-Weidenfeller said, and he was diagnosed with MS and given a referral for a neurologist. He saw the neurologist in September 2023, who again diagnosed him with MS and recommended he be treated with Ocrevus, a drug used to treat MS, according to the lawsuit.
The neurologist was told Veltkamp would be moved soon to Jackson State Prison and agreed Veltkamp could begin the treatment after the transfer. The neurologist called the jail multiple times, seeking information about Veltkamp’s transfer and his ability to start on the drug, but was not given information. Veltkamp was not moved to the prison until Nov. 3.
“Defendants ACH and NEWAYGO COUNTY had a policy, practice, and/or custom of denying costly medical treatment for detainees that they knew would eventually be transferred to a MDOC prison or released,” according to the lawsuit.
When prison medical staff reviewed his records, they also did not start Veltkamp on the drug, despite further calls from his neurologist to get Veltkamp on the drug as his symptoms rapidly worsened, according to the lawsuit.
The prison allegedly ignored the neurologist’s previous MS diagnosis and sent a request in December 2023 for another consult, which was scheduled for September 2024.
In December 2023, Veltkamp sent a note to medical staff.
“I’m dying in here without proper help. … please help me,” he wrote, according to the lawsuit.
Prison medical staff allegedly told him to be patient.
He was sent to the emergency room in July 2024 when he was unable to stand, eat or drink by himself, had difficulty swallowing and had become incontinent with both his bowel and bladder. A MRI scan found he had developed numerous new lesions since July 2023 and the disease had progressed significantly.
He was started on IV steroids with a plan to begin Copaxone to treat his MS and was discharged to the Duane Waters Health Center in Jackson.
“Plaintiff’s MS had progressed to the point where he was confined to a wheelchair, suffered from constant dizziness, altered vision, slurred speech, bowel and bladder incontinence, full body tremors and spasms that were so violent that they caused headaches and made it impossible for him to brush his teeth, feed or bath himself,” according to the lawsuit.
When he was released from prison in October 2024, Veltkamp started the MS treatment his neurologist had wanted him to begin more than a year earlier.
But it was too late, Esser-Weidenfeller said, as the medication only stops the progress of the disease and cannot reverse it.
“One of the goals (of the lawsuit) is to shine a light on this for-profit system that we have going on in our state with these private healthcare providers and trying to hold them accountable,” she said. “And then number two, we’ve got to get Shane some compensation because he’s got so many needs, healthcare and medical needs, and he’s going to have them for the next 40 years, so the rest of his life, unfortunately.”
kberg@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Michigan prison neglect left man in wheelchair, lawsuit alleges
Reporting by Kara Berg, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Kara Berg, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
