The sister of a recent stroke victim incarcerated at Springfield’s Southern State Correctional facility has alleged he’s receiving inadequate medical care after apparently experiencing concerning symptoms earlier this week.
Janice Bradley said her brother, Jay Orost, 61, told her that on Sunday and Tuesday nights his symptoms included several that could indicate another stroke, including bleeding out of the left side of his nose, his vision going black, an excruciating pain behind his left eye and numbness on the left side of his face and his left arm.
Both times, despite submitting medical slips requesting care, Orost did not receive medical attention, according to Bradley, who has power of attorney related to her brother’s care.
The two latest episodes came after Orost suffered a stroke while in Vermont Department of Corrections’ custody in St. Johnsbury last month, which left him hospitalized in intensive care.
Bradley provided VTDigger with Orost’s medical records detailing the June stroke and two grievances she has filed to the Department of Corrections related to his care since.
“I’m just afraid that one of these times he’s going to have one of these events and he’s going to die for lack of medical attention,” said Bradley, who speaks to her brother daily by phone.
Isaac Dayno, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, said the department “takes these allegations incredibly seriously. The department finds these allegations very disturbing.”
The department would undergo a full fact finding mission to investigate the allegations, Dayno said. Citing department policy, he said he could not comment on an individual’s specific medical care.
Orost was admitted to the intensive care unit at Northeast Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury on June 1 after he passed out at Northeast Regional Correctional Complex, his medical records show. An MRI confirmed he had experienced a stroke.
He was prescribed multiple new medications to help manage his blood pressure, according to a discharge summary on June 7.
Orost was then brought to the infirmary at Southern State in Springfield, Bradley said. According to Bradley, Orost has had limited use of his right hand since birth, and his stroke impacted use of his left hand, restricting his ability to write, so she has submitted grievances on his behalf.
In the first grievance, dated July 5, she contended that nurses stopped monitoring Orost’s blood pressure less than two weeks after he arrived in Springfield.
She also alleged that medical staff refused to tell Orost which medications he was receiving. After leaving the infirmary, he described passing out and vomiting while taking a shower, according to Bradley’s complaint. He recounted to his sister that “the nurse looked at me, said ‘he’s fine,’ turned and left.”
According to a second grievance Bradley submitted on July 12, Orost said he was told four days earlier that he would not get one of his blood pressure medications because staff told him they were “out of it.”
Bradley said Orost, who has been using a wheelchair since his stroke, had described passing out every time he stood up for the first three or four weeks after his June stroke. More recently, he has been passing out one or two times per week, she said.
Medical care in Vermont’s prisons has received increased scrutiny since the death of David Mitchell at the Springfield prison in April. Mitchell was the 12th person to die at the Springfield facility since January 2022. Eyewitnesses alleged that Mitchell complained repeatedly about trouble breathing on the day he died but received only cursory medical attention. His death prompted others to speak out about alleged inadequacies in Vermont’s prison medical system.
As of July 1, the Department of Corrections switched its health services provider from VitalCore to Wellpath LLC, a Tennessee-based health care company owned by private equity firm H.I.G. Capital. Wellpath did not respond to questions on Wednesday about Orost’s care and the company’s work in Vermont.
