Former inmate sues over AIDS medication

Jace Radke

Tuesday, July 24, 2001 | 10:40 a.m.

A man dying of complications from AIDS has filed a $10 million lawsuit against the Clark County Jail's medical director, Metro Police and a health care company, which was penalized in New York last week because of inadequate work in that state's prison system.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court Monday by attorney John Costo on behalf of 33-year-old Karl Robert Kurfis. The suit alleges that Kurfis was denied his AIDS medication while incarcerated for seven months last year.

"I've been a lawyer for 18 years, and I like to say that nothing surprises me anymore, but this shocked me," Costo said. "For life-saving medicine to be withheld from an AIDS patient, that's shocking."

Kurfis was arrested in February 2000 on a burglary charge and held until September, according to the complaint, which alleges Kurfis was given his medication only 14 days during his incarceration.

Harvey Hoffman, the jail's medical director, is alleged in the complaint to have stopped giving Kurfis the medication and allegedly said that Kurfis didn't deserve the treatment and that the inmate was a drug addict.

"He was dispensing pills. This wasn't brain surgery," Costo said. "This was medication that was prescribed to a patient, and he (Hoffman) reviewed my client's charges and decided he didn't deserve to be treated. It was an active, callous and cruel act."

Metro Police spokesman Lt. Vincent Cannito said that Metro attorneys "have advised that it is not in our best interest to comment on pending litigation."

The lawsuit seeks $10 million in punitive damages from Hoffman and undetermined amounts in damages from Metro, Sheriff Jerry Keller, Prison Health Services, Inc. and EMSA Correctional Care, Inc.

Prison Health Services contracts with the four local jails, including Clark County Detention Center, to provide health care for inmates.

Prison Health Services, a Brentwood, Tenn.-based company, met only three of 33 standards in a review of the company's services for 13,500 inmates at 12 city jails in New York last week, according to a New York Times story. Four of the standards reviewed, which were not met, involved AIDS treatment.

The company serves more than 400 jail and prison sites around the country and services about 325,000 inmates in 29 states and Washington D.C., according to the company's website. The company has recently acquired EMSA, another prison health care provider.

Kurfis' medication, known as a triple cocktail, costs as much as $1,500 a month, Costo said.

The suit alleges that Hoffman, while in the employ of EMSA and or Prison Health Services at the jail, violated the Hippocratic Oath and that the denial of the cocktail resulted in Kurfis' terminal condition. Kurfis is not expected to live more than a few months, according to the complaint.

"If he was on his medication for those seven months he probably wouldn't be in this position," Costo said. "Mr. Kurfis is in some pain right now, but he said he hopes this lawsuit can serve as a mechanism, so that other people don't have to go through this."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada is co-litigating Kurfis' case with Costo. Gary Peck, the organization's executive director, said that he hopes the case will shed some light on what he says are unresolved problems at the jail.

"Hopefully, Mr. Kurfis' case, with the magnitude of the human tragedy involved, will finally get someone's attention," Peck said. "It's obvious to us through years of trying to work and cooperate with Metro and the jail that they are not interested in dealing with these problems in a serious way. Instead, they deny the problems even exist, and in their view the jail is a model facility."