 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. 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. 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 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. 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 of them were treated, and one of the four remained hospitalized Tuesday afternoon. 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 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 delayed response in ensuring that the inmates received needed medical care is unacceptable," the statement read. Estrada's parole date was just two weeks away, on April 21. Two were in good condition and sent back to prison; three others were admitted and returned to the prison on Monday. Estrada was from Mexico and believed to have been in the country illegally, Adams said. Aside from the Department of Corrections' internal investigation, the Unified Police Department is also investigating Estrada's death, which is standard procedure. 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. "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. 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. "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.
– 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.)