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Tennessee inmate asking for hepatitis C treatment dies

See: Inmates with hepatitis C sue Tennessee prison officials for treatment
7-1-2016 Tennessee:

John Bilby knew he didn't have much time left.

But, at least for a few days, it appeared as though the longtime Tennessee inmate and sufferer of hepatitis C might have some hope. Diane Douglas, Bilby's wife, said he was recently told he was at the top of the list to receive the best available treatment for his hepatitis C, a chronic disease that slowly destroys the liver.

Douglas said the day after Bilby told her this, he died.

"He was a very strong man, strong minded. He realized he had done wrong, but with me and him and the chaplain, he realized God would forgive him for it," Douglas told The Tennessean.

"I was with him for 16 years, and he finally made peace with that. He was changing his life around."
Bilby, 66, died this week at Turney Center Industrial Complex in Only, Tenn., about an hour's drive southwest of Nashville. He'd been in prison for more than 27 years on charges of rape, kidnapping and assault. Patricia Lambert, Bilby's sister, said she was told he died due to complications from hepatitis C. But Lambert and Douglas said they can't get anyone to turn over official records that would show his cause of death.

The Tennessean profiled Bilby in a recent series on the pervasiveness of hepatitis C in Tennessee's prison system and the lack of treatment for almost all infected with the potential deadly disease. At the time, state prison officials acknowledged only eight of the 3,487 were receiving treatments that could cure inmates who have hepatitis C. As of Friday, a prison spokeswoman said she had asked the department's chief medical officer for an update as to the number of people infected and the number of people receiving treatment.

While Department of Correction officials argue they treat all affected inmates, for most patients that amounts to routinely drawing their blood. Dr. Arthur Kim, a hepatitis C expert with Harvard Medical School, recently said drawing blood is not treatment.

The best available medication, including Sovaldi and Harvoni, can be very expensive: One pill regime for one patient can cost $84,000 or more. But the medication works in curing the disease in more than 90 percent of all cases. Kim and other experts also say treating inmates can help stem what's considered a national hepatitis C epidemic.

For months Bilby, and many other inmates, sent letters to The Tennessean and prisoner advocates about their attempts to receive hepatitis C treatment. In those letters, Bilby offered documents that he said shows he'd filed medical grievances, and others that purportedly show a grievance board recommended he receive the latest hepatitis C treatment.

"I've more than paid for my crimes & don't deserve to be treated like these people are doing (no one does)," Bilby wrote in one recent letter to The Tennessean.

"Please, help, or send help here, to shake these people up & make them give me medical care!"

Douglas and Lambert said they believe Bilby would still be alive if he were given the best medication sooner. The news that he was perhaps in line to receive that medication at the time of his death makes the entire situation worse, Lambert said.

Lambert said she was devastated by the news of his death. At this point, though, she's angry: Instead of turning over her brother's medical records, state officials just want her to pick up his body.

"As far as I’m concerned, they killed him. They can bury that body," Lambert said.

Department policy says if next of kin don't take an inmate's body it's up to the warden to arrange the burial. Policy says the warden should look for a spot near the prison that will bury the inmate for no charge. ..Source.. by Dave Boucher

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