Florida inmates were denied eye surgery for years. Some were left blind

Randall Barde’s eyesight wasn’t right. The light in his cell had a blue ring around it. His vision was blurry.After a two-year delay, a 2019 eye exam revealed advanced cataracts in both eyes. He needs surgery “soon,” the specialist wrote in his report to prison officials.Surgery still hadn’t happened two years later when his brother Tim Barde visited. He was shocked to see his younger brother feeling his way with a cane. A badge with “vision impaired” was pinned to his shirt.“I was stunned,” Tim Barde said. “I had to go up and bring him back to the table.”Barde, 70, was denied medical care for six years despite five specialists recommending surgery, state records show. Instead, he was given glasses that optometrists told prison officials would not help.Blind in prison, Barde broke two toes and hit his head several times, prison emails show. Some inmates helped him. Others ripped him off.In January, a doctor finally operated on Barde’s left eye. It required a follow-up procedure before he could finally see clearly. There was another six-month wait to remove the cataract from his right eye.Around 90% of people over 65 have some level of cataracts, the most common cause of vision loss worldwide. Florida’s prison population of almost 90,000 is no exception.But inmates recommended for eye surgeries have been forced to wait years for procedures, state records show. Some procedures were delayed for so long that inmates ended up permanently blind. One died from other health issues after waiting more than six years for surgery on his corneas.More than 1,000 were on a wait list for surgery in 2024, state records show. The backlog prompted the nonprofit Florida Justice Institute in October to sue the Florida Department of Corrections and Centurion of Florida, the contractor paid to provide prison health care.The class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of Barde and Carla Verner, a St. Petersburg woman whose cataract surgery was delayed for almost three years. It accuses the two organizations of causing hundreds of Florida inmates to suffer preventable blindness, a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.In the outside world, cataract surgeries are considered minor and typically take 15 minutes. The prison system’s failure to provide that basic eye care procedure heightens the risk of permanent blindness and surgery complications, the lawsuit states. It leaves people vulnerable in the dangerous environment of a prison.“Rather than providing a quick and simple surgery, defendants have allowed hundreds of people, many of them seniors, to become totally blind,” Erica Downs, an attorney at Florida Justice, said in an email. “Not only are they now at risk for permanent vision loss, but they are far more likely to suffer from falls and fractures and be abused in prison.”The Florida Department of Corrections contracts with Centurion of Florida to provide health care, including vision services, to Florida’s incarcerated population.Department officials declined to answer questions about how many inmates are awaiting eye surgeries and why surgeries were delayed, contrary to recommendations from specialists.“The Florida Department of Corrections does not comment on any pending litigation,” an email from its office of communications said.Officials from Centurion of Florida’s media office did not respond to three emails and a voicemail requesting comment. When inmates or their families have a gripe about prison life, they often reach out to Florida Cares.The West Palm Beach nonprofit is dedicated to improving the lives of incarcerated people and their families. It works with a Department of Corrections central office to try and resolve issues.Starting around the fall of 2023, staffers noticed that complaints about delayed eye surgeries began to pile up.In all, Florida Cares heard from about 60 inmates. Their stories showed a pattern of urgent care being delayed even after they filed grievances with their prison about not being treated. In anticipation of surgery, some had been transferred to the prison in Lake Butler, where there is a medical center, only to have their appointments canceled.“The doctor said his eyes should have been done five years ago. He says his left eye is completely gone and his right is almost the same,” one relative told Florida Cares.“His left eye is completely blind, and unable to benefit from cataract surgery at this point,” another said. “If this request for cataract surgery was fulfilled seven years ago, my brother would not have lost his vision.”Emails from Department of Corrections officials show that the system was failing. One sent in June 2024 by its chief of medical services, Danny Martinez, responded to an urgent request for cataract surgery. In it, Martinez mentioned a “backlog of about 1,000 inmates in need of ophthalmological surgery.”Adam Meretsky spoke with Florida Cares after his medical care was delayed.Blind in one eye when he was imprisoned about 17 years ago, the sight in his other eye had begun to fail. He was examined by two specialists and asked to sign release forms for corneal transplants, a report compiled by Florida Cares states.More than six years later, he was still on a wait list. His vision was so bad that his mother would photocopy whole books, enlarging the text so he could read them.Meretsky, 39, died in November 2024 from other health issues. He never got his surgery.“He was frightened,” his mother told the Tampa Bay Times in an interview. “Nothing could be worse than not having your sight and being in prison. You can’t see who’s around the corner.”Frustrated by the department’s lack of action, Florida Cares reported the cases to attorneys at Florida Justice, a Miami nonprofit that conducts civil rights litigation and advocacy in the areas of prisoners’ rights, housing discrimination and other issues.Its director of litigation, Dante Trevisani, wrote in February asking Clayton Weiss, the Department of Corrections’ director of health services, and Dr. John Lay, Centurion’s statewide medical director, to address the backlog. The letter included accounts of 15 inmates who went years without recommended eye surgery.“It is apparent that there is a policy, practice, and custom of failing to provide adequate specialty eye care,” the letter said. The American Academy of Ophthalmology recommends people 60 and up have regular eye exams for age-related issues like cataracts, as early detection improves outcomes. Delays in treatment puts eyesight at risk, said Ravi Goel, an ophthalmologist and spokesperson for the academy.“Patients in correctional or institutional settings are especially vulnerable, and ensuring timely access to medical and surgical eye care is critical not only for preserving sight, but also for maintaining independence, alleviating suffering, and preventing what should be a preventable disability,” he said in an email.The Department of Corrections in 2023 awarded Centurion a $2.8 billion contract to provide health care services at 134 Florida prisons over four years.The contract requires that the state reimburse the company for medical services. Centurion hires doctors and nurses to provide medical care. Vision care is largely provided by outside clinics and specialists.Centurion is part of Centurion Health, a private company that does business in about 15 states. Its quality of care has been the subject of several lawsuits and investigations.It was one of four prison health care providers sued in 2023 by the American Civil Liberties Union in Delaware for what the nonprofit called “unlawful and unconstitutional delays and denials of treatment.”Three years ago, a U.S. Department of Justice investigation of Mississippi’s Parchman prison, where Centurion provided health services, found the prison did not adequately treat people with mental illness.Florida Justice attorneys allege the same failure to provide adequate care in their lawsuit.Vision is measured by comparing a patient’s ability to read an eye chart from a standard distance — typically 20 feet — with 20/20 considered normal vision.The federal Medicare program, which covers health care for American seniors, will typically approve cataract surgery when a patient’s eye score falls below 20/40 and affects daily activities like reading.Florida inmates are approved for the same surgery when their vision tests 20/50 or worse, department standards state. But even when an inmate has a cataract causing legal blindness in one eye, they will be denied surgery if the vision in their other eye is acceptable.“Essentially, prisoners are being denied medically necessary cataract surgery, because they still have ‘one good eye,’” the lawsuit states.That is of particular concern for older inmates, who are more susceptible to cataracts, glaucoma and other vision problems. About one in eight of those in Florida prisons are 60 or older, in part because the state abolished parole for most inmates in 1983. Ken Lott’s vision began failing about four years ago.A quadruple heart bypass survivor, he had cataracts in both eyes and could no longer read the labels on his pill bottles. He was forced to wait for medication until it was brought by prison nurses.The glasses he was given did little to help. Others would read his emails to him, but as a death row inmate at Union Correctional Institute, he spends all but three hours of the day alone in his cell.Not wanting her husband to lose the ability to walk, Loretta Lott asked if she could provide him with a walker. Prison officials refused. Instead, he stands behind a wheelchair and pushes it along, she said.“I’ve seen him go from a man that can get up and have pride and walk around to a man that’s now in a wheelchair, that has to wear a little tag that says ‘legally blind,’” she said. “He’s very sad. He’s very depressed. His mental health has definitely been affected, because he does not want to live the rest of his life blind, and that’s his fear.”Four years after he was approved for surgeries on both eyes, Lott, 56, finally underwent the procedures in April. One eye had complications that required additional laser treatment.Loretta Lott is convinced her husband would still be blind were it not for the intervention of Florida Cares and the attorneys at Florida Justice.“It took a village to get his eyes fixed, and it shouldn’t be that hard,” she said.Lott was thrilled to see his wife’s face again.“I told her, ‘Honey, you look better than you’ve ever looked to me,’” he said on a phone call with the Times.In the upcoming state legislative session, Florida Cares will be pushing for the passage of a bill to create an independent prison ombudsman who would have the authority to resolve disputes between those in prison and the Department of Corrections on issues like access to health care.It would save the state money since it could reduce the number of lawsuits the department faces, said founder and executive director Denise Rock.“It’s unfortunate that we have to resort to going to a lawyer to get the treatment that’s needed,” she said.For those who question why the state should spend tax dollars on health care for criminals and inmates who will be executed, Rock points out that Florida has exonerated 78 people convicted of serious crimes since 1978, including 27 convicted of murder.Almost 90% of people incarcerated will be eventually released. “Do we want them coming home blind without a job and no way to take care of themselves?” she said. “They’re still human beings, and we still have a responsibility while they’re incarcerated to care for them.”

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