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DALLAS (UPS) — The medical system at federal prisons is plagued by overcrowding, person nel shortages and medical bungl ing that costs the government money and lives, a Dallas newspaper reported this week. The Dallas Morning News said the nearly 50,000 federal prisoners in 55 locations face a ‘‘take it or leave it’’ system in which inmates have little protection from in competent doctors and neglect. As an example, the News cited a 1987 operation performed at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo., to remove a cancerous spot from the right lung of Lawrence Manson, a convicted bank robber. The News said surgeon Dr. Michael Swanson, 41, mistakenly stapled and cut Manson’s trachea, blocking air to both lungs. The operation, scheduled for four hours, lasted nine hours and re quired 16 to 17 units of blood and more than 30 units of blood products. Seventeen hours later, Swanson performed another procedure on Manson, but the prisoner gagged on his own blood and died, said the News, which examined the medical system at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons for a year, ‘las a former federal defender and lawyer in this field for 25 years, I can say without equivoca tion that medical service in the federal prison system is pathetic and unresponsive. I'd be reluctant to take my dog to them. 33 Swanson, who joined the prison system in return for a government grant to attend medical school, “was doing cases I didn’t think he was qualified to do at the prison hospital, a former operating room nurse told the newspaper. Swanson, who completed his Public Health Service obligation, left the Springfield hospital last week and refused to comment on the Matson case to the News. The newspaper said more than half of the physicians practicing in federal prisons are young doctors just out of residency programs or older doctors who are retired or previously worked in other govern ment institutions. Dr. Kenneth Moritsugu, medical director of the Bureau of Prisons, told the newspaper that federal prisoners receive ‘a quality of care consistent with community standards. He acknowledged, however, that the bureau has 39 vacancies on its staff of 129 doctors and could be 40 percent understaffed by September, creating what he described as an ‘‘absolute crisis’ situation. “As a former federal defender and lawyer in this field for 25 years, I can say without equivoca tion that medical service in the federal prison system is pathetic and unresponsive,’ said John Cleary of San Diego. ‘‘I'd be reluc tant to take my dog to them.”
Newspaper Details
Dixon Telegraph
Dixon, Illinois, US
Sat, Jul 01, 1989
Page 14
Full Page
Clipped by
Marsha D.
USA 29 Jan 2026
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