Tweet
Written by Farah Diaz-Tello for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
How two pain pills and the drug war cost a woman her life.
I don’t like war metaphor. I prefer to think about reproductive justice advocacy in terms of healing and love. But when our nonsensical policies on drugs and reproductive health claim the lives of living, breathing people, it feels like a war.
Jamie Lynn Russell was 33 years old when she went to an emergency room in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma in such debilitating pain that she was unable to move. Because her excruciating pain prevented her from lying down for an examination, hospital staff labeled her “noncompliant,” and called the police. The police discovered that she had two pain pills that weren’t hers. Still in pain, she was released by the hospital as “fit to incarcerate,” arrested for drug possession, and taken to jail, where she died two hours later from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.
Two pain pills.
Much of the initial response to the case centered around the actions of the hospital, which likely amount to malpractice. But we must avoid making the mistake that the hospital did: looking at individual actions when they are merely symptoms of deeper, deadlier problems.
Jamie’s needless death shows us where our priorities lie, misplaced: chasing down minor drug offenders in service of a failed war on drugs is more important that human life and dignity; women’s health is not taken seriously and “noncompliance” is cause for punishment. The tragedy of her death once again disproves the myth that women never need abortions and that “modern technology and science” have eliminated maternal mortality.
I hope that her family — and people across Oklahoma and the United States — will demand justice for Jamie so that she is not just another unnamed casualty of the many political and rhetorical wars waged on pregnant women.
Photo by Charles Williams and Dawn McIlvain Stahlreleased under a Creative Commons license.
5 Comments
Thanks for this.
Pain in still an issue that is dealt with horribly by providers on all levels. Those ubiquitous smiley-yucky faces and 1 to 10 pain scales you find in hospitals notwithstanding. These people are callous toward people in pain and just do not want to treat it appropriately. It’s as if the person in pain is annoying them or spoiling their day rather than presenting a symptom of something that’s gone extremely wrong.
And, Oh yes. People are often treated with suspicion and contempt, as if they were addicts trying to get their hands on the company dope. Actually, being in pain is almost as bad as being a rape victim. But not quite.
And the ever-growning, drugwar mandated restrictions on pain med prescriptions only make it harder for those of us with chronic pain conditions — and do little to stem abuse. This story is a terrible example of the cost of these policies.
I feel I owe my life to a doctor that decided that I did need pain meds, even though almost every test known to maedicine showed that there “was nothing wrong with me.” And then his staff figured out that I was allergic to gluten. Problem solved. But I don’t think I would have made it through the two years in medical limbo without the pain meds he offered.
Your doctor is a hero of common sense, courage and sound medical practice. There are others like him, I know. Just not enough.