"Only Adequate Healthcare" is the motto of Dr. Amador Cantu, DO at the Federal Detention Center (FDC) in Sheridan, Oregon. The following is based on interviews conducted with his patients as well as my own personal experience.
Shortly after my arrival I witnessed a man collapse in front of the commissary. He was left on his back and not rolled over onto his side despite being an epileptic. When he got back to the unit, he told people that he had not been given his anti-seizure medication since arriving at FDC from the county jail.
My celly has COPD from years of smoking. He needs a steroid inhaler and a breathing machine, but Cantu told him he doesn't have COPD. He has it, his doctor in the real world said so. He sounds like he is choking to death when he is sleeping.
Josh Vincens has adema, which causes him to retain water. It has not been treated at the FDC and he now weighs over 400 lbs. He also has bipolar I, with psychotic features, but Cantu would not give him his Risperdal when he complained of hearing voices that told him to kill himself and others. (So Josh is not the only one lucky to be alive.) Cantu told him, "If you're not listening to the voices they are not an immediate problem that adequate healthcare can fix". Josh reported that Cantu's favorite line is "only adequate healthcare" as in you only have the right to adequate healthcare. Eventually, he was able to get his meds at a county jail and luckily Cantu continued them when Josh came back to FDC. I guess someone in county figured out that Josh would not have known what the voices said if he were not listening to them. Cantu is not a psychologist, psychiatrist or any other sort of mental health professional. Maybe if he had listened to his patients he would learn that voices "are problematic, distressful, and disturbing whether or not someone is acting on them".
Another source (a Vietnam veteran who lost on eye), wanting to contribute on the problems he experienced with health care at this facility, spoke of his being taken off medication that was prescribed and paid for by the VA. He served his country and such benefits are his right. The vet filed two complaints with HSA Weber. Our vet was told that because he had been on record saying that he never wants to see or speak to Cantu again, that he can't get medical care until he is designated and shipped off to another location. The vet uses the canteen for most of his medications except, of course, he cannot get his meds which require regular prescriptions. He needs blood pressure meds. After 30 months at FDC Sheridan, our vet says that Cantu . . ."does not handle his job with any professional etiquette what-so-ever."
Dave Fox was in the FDI at Sheridan. He could not get lipid medications for his triglycerides after Cantu said, "Do you mind a pain in the *** every once in a while?" Cantu had no problem accenting this remark by further commenting that sometimes guys are locked up around guys like a pain in the *** once in awhile. David told Cantu, "**** *** m***********, I'm not a *** and I'm not going to tolerate that!" Cantu considered Dave storming out of his office to be a refusal for services. After Dave complained elsewhere, he finally got his meds. After this incident, Cantu failed to treat a raging herpes outbreak. Despite how embarrassing that might make some people, it didn't stop Dave from suggesting that his name be used in this article by saying, "You can use my full name, I don't give a ****!"
The best thing anyone said about the doc was "He is holistic, so he wants to treat with a remedy as opposed to medicine, which is fine if it works, but a lot of times it does not."
Another guy was taken off morphine after surgery to install a pacemaker and given nothing else.
My own experiences have been frustrating. For example, I came in on good pain meds for a broken arm (non-union full fracture of left upper arm) only to have med replaced with something not nearly as good. I've tried to see him for painful, chronic cystic acne but only get notes back that I'll see him eventually. I would ask him things when he is in the unit, but every time I've seen people go to him with problems and he says "Are you on my list?" and if the answer is "No" then you have the additional problem of not being on his list. The email service for sending medical concerns or complaints in the unit has been discontinued and you can only use paper (copouts) now. I frequently hear people complaining about him not answering their copouts.