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By the time Santos Ruiz heard from the prison doctor last July, his father had been at St. Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco for two weeks and on a ventilator.
“We don’t think he’s going to make it,” he recalled her saying.
This was the first time Ruiz had heard that his father, a 61-year-old inmate at San Quentin State Prison, even had the virus.
“It wasn’t right,” Ruiz said. “They waited to a point where a person can’t talk, a person can’t communicate with his family that loved him.”
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As the pandemic has ravaged California prisons, some families say that officials have failed to inform them when their loved ones have been hospitalized with the virus receiving a call only when it might already be too late to say their goodbyes, act as surrogate decision-makers or provide critical emotional support.
Families of prisoners hospitalized with COVID-19 say they re not notified until too late
msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Families of prisoners hospitalized with COVID-19 say they re not notified until too late
msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.