SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah prison inmate is dead of an apparent heart attack related to renal failure after a dialysis provider didn't show up for a scheduled treatment for two days in a row, a prison official said Tuesday. 
 
 Ramon C. Estrada, 62, was set to be paroled in less than three weeks when he died Sunday at the prison in Draper, Utah Department of Corrections spokeswoman Brooke Adams said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. 
 
 He was scheduled to have dialysis Friday at the prison's treatment center, but a technician did not show up on Friday or Saturday. The technician or technicians involved worked for a University of Utah Hospital clinic that provides dialysis for the prison. 
 
 Kathy Wilets, a University of Utah Hospital spokeswoman, said there appears to have been some miscommunication with South Valley Dialysis technician scheduling, and the hospital is investigating. 
 
 "We have a responsibility to provide quality care for patients. We will now conduct a thorough review of the circumstances that led to this unacceptable mistake and will take whatever steps are necessary to improve communications and procedures," Wilets said in a statement. 
 
 The organization was saddened to learn of Estrada's death, she said. 
 
 Adams said six other inmates had been waiting for dialysis treatment and were taken to a hospital for evaluation. Four of them were treated, and one of the four remained hospitalized Tuesday afternoon. The other two inmates were returned to their cells. Adams did not have details about how long the four admitted to the hospital went without dialysis treatment. 
 
 The Utah State Medical Examiner's office will conduct an autopsy on Estrada's body and determine his cause of death, Adams said. 
 
 The corrections department's law enforcement bureau is investigating, but an initial review indicates that Estrada's lack of treatment may have played a role in his death, Adams said. 
 
 The prison's clinical services director has been placed on leave as the department investigates how prison staff and South Valley Dialysis responded and how a similar situation can be prevented. 
 
 The department is taking immediate steps to ensure the prison has contact numbers for technicians scheduled to show up and that prison staff are notified when technicians show up for treatment and that they report on inmate conditions, Adams said. 
 
 Adams said she did not have details about whether prison staff tried to contact the technicians when they failed to show. She told The Associated Press that was part of the ongoing investigation. 
 
 The Unified Police Department, which covers Salt Lake County, is also investigating. 
 
 Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal said investigators are waiting for autopsy results to pinpoint the cause of death, but didn't find any signs of foul play in the man's cell. 
 
 Estrada had been in prison since August 2005 on a rape conviction, Adams said. He was scheduled to be paroled on April 21. 
 
 Estrada was from Mexico and believed to have been in the country illegally, Adams said. He would have been turned over to the U.S. Marshals Service when his sentence was complete, she said. 
 
 Randall W. Richards, a lawyer who represented Estrada in 2005, did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday. It was unclear if Estrada had an attorney at the time of his death. 
 
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 Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst in Salt Lake City contributed to this report. ||||| A Utah State Prison inmate died Sunday after a medical contractor responsible for performing his dialysis treatment failed to show up on Friday and Saturday. Ramon Estrada, 62, died from apparent cardiac arrest due to kidney failure. 
 
 UTAH STATE PRISON — An inmate scheduled to be paroled in two weeks died Sunday after a medical contractor responsible for performing his dialysis treatments failed to show up at the prison on Friday and Saturday. 
 
 Ramon C. Estrada, 62, died from apparent cardiac arrest that was the result of kidney failure, according to a statement from the Utah Department of Corrections. His body was sent to the state medical examiner to determine an exact cause of death. 
 
 "A preliminary review indicates that the lack of dialysis treatment could be a contributing factor in Estrada’s death," said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Brooke Adams. 
 
 Richard Garden, the clinical services bureau director for the Department of Corrections, was placed on administrative leave while the circumstances leading to Estrada's death are investigated. 
 
 A dialysis technician who works for University of Utah South Valley Dialysis Center, based in Sandy, "failed to show up as anticipated" at the Utah State Prison on both Friday and Saturday to provide dialysis treatment for inmates, Adams said. Estrada was to receive kidney dialysis on Friday. He died Sunday night while prison staff and others were preparing to take him to University Hospital to be treated. 
 
 Six other inmates, all men, also went without their scheduled dialysis and were taken to the hospital Sunday night. Four were admitted for an overnight stay. One man remained hospitalized Tuesday. 
 
 Adams would not comment on why the technician failed to show up or why it took prison officials until Sunday night to get treatment for the inmates. 
 
 "Obviously, we are aware that he didn't (show up)," Adams said, but she would not say when prison officials discovered that the inmates hadn't received their scheduled treatment. 
 
 The spokeswoman also declined to comment on the circumstances surrounding Garden being placed on leave. An internal investigation is underway. 
 
 "The delayed response in ensuring that the inmates received needed medical care is unacceptable," Adams said. 
 
 Estrada's parole date was just two weeks away, on April 21. He was sent to prison in August of 2005 after being convicted of rape. Estrada was a citizen of Mexico. 
 
 Aside from the Department of Corrections' internal investigation, the Unified Police Department is also investigating Estrada's death, which is standard procedure. Lt. Justin Hoyal said his department is primarily interested in finding out Estrada's cause of death from his autopsy. 
 
 "(Criminal culpability in Estrada's death) is one of the things that could play into this and one of the things we will look into," Hoyal said. "But as far as the investigation as to what took place there at the prison, as far as his medical care and what may or may not have been taken care of, is being conducted internally by prison officials." 
 
 A spokeswoman for the University of Utah Health Care said it would also investigate the "unacceptable mistake." 
 
 "We are saddened to learn of this prisoner’s death and are concerned about the scheduling error for dialysis services provided at the prison by University of Utah technicians. We have a responsibility to provide quality care for patients. We will now conduct a thorough review of the circumstances that led to this unacceptable mistake and will take whatever steps are necessary to improve communications and procedures," Kathy Wilets said in a prepared statement. 
 
 Adams said several changes will be put in place at the prison "to improve communication with and oversight of the dialysis contract provider." 
 
 "Those steps include getting a schedule calendar with contact telephone numbers for dialysis technicians; requiring nursing staff assigned to the Olympus (prison) facility to make contact with and receive post-treatment reports from the on-duty technician on dialysis days; improving chart notes about each inmate’s status and condition; and requiring timely notification to the charge nurse when the dialysis schedule changes or a technician fails to show up," she said. 
 
 Email: blockhart@deseretnews.com, Twitter: benlockhartnews ||||| "The delayed response in ensuring that the inmates received needed medical care is unacceptable," the statement read. 
 
 Estrada was scheduled for kidney dialysis Friday, but a technician with South Valley Dialysis Center, the contracted treatment provider, did not arrive, wrote Brooke Adams, department spokeswoman. 
 
 The technician didn't show up Saturday either. Estrada died about 10:30 p.m. Sunday as medics were getting him ready to go to the hospital. 
 
 University of Utah Health Care, which operates the dialysis center, plans to "conduct a thorough review of the circumstances that led to this unacceptable mistake and will take whatever steps are necessary to improve communications procedures," according to a statement by spokeswoman Kathy Wilets. 
 
 The six other inmates who'd missed their treatments were taken to University Hospital for evaluation. Two were in good condition and sent back to prison; three others were admitted and returned to the prison on Monday. One remains in the hospital. 
 
 "The department's internal investigation will include a review of all aspects of the situation, including the response by its medical leadership and staff, actions of its contract provider and an analysis of what measures need to be taken to prevent this from happening again," Adams wrote. 
 
 The department's Clinical Services Bureau director has been put on leave. 
 
 While the investigation is underway, prison staff have created a dialysis schedule calendar and collected phone numbers of dialysis technicians, Adams wrote. Nurses are required to take post-treatment reports from those technicians and make better chart notes about the inmates' condition. 
 
 Staff also are required to make "timely notification" to the charge nurse if the schedule changes or a technician misses an appointment, Adams wrote. 
 
 Adams didn't know the condition of the inmate who remains hospitalized. 
 
 ealberty@sltrib.com
– An inmate from Utah just weeks away from parole died after a dialysis technician failed to show up—for two days in a row. The Utah Department of Corrections says 62-year-old Ramon C. Estrada died on Sunday of "apparent cardiac arrest due to renal failure," the Salt Lake Tribune reports. The department says Estrada was scheduled to have dialysis treatment on Friday but nobody showed up that day or the next, and he died while prison staff were preparing to take him to a hospital Sunday night, reports the Deseret News. Six other inmates who had also been waiting for treatment were hospitalized, a department spokeswoman says, and one of them was still in the hospital yesterday afternoon. A spokeswoman for the University of Utah Hospital, which was supposed to send a technician to the prison in Draper, tells the AP there appears to have been a miscommunication and there will be a "thorough review of the circumstances that led to this unacceptable mistake." The corrections department also describes the delay in medical care as unacceptable and has suspended its clinical services bureau director while Estrada's death is investigated, reports the Tribune. Estrada, a Mexican national who had been in prison since a 2005 rape conviction, was scheduled to be released on parole on April 21. (County jailers in Alabama are being sued for allegedly withholding basic medical care to cut costs, leading to the deaths of at least three inmates.)