Denial of medical care to an inmate is cruel and unusual punishment that is expressly prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In a seminal case Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a prisoner can successfully state a claim for cruel and unusual punishment based on inadequate medical care by alleging an objectively serious medical condition and a prison official's deliberate indifference to that condition. Following this landmark decision, many prisoners including some of our clients have successfully pursued an Eighth Amendment claim alleging correctional officers' reckless disregard of prisoners' objectively serious and progressively worsening medical complaints. However, one aspect of prison medical care that has not been addressed much in judicial decisions is prisoners' rights to their own health information and rights in medical decision-making.

We have come to learn from our incarcerated clients that they are told little to no information regarding their diagnosis, severity of their condition, and need for follow-up after physician encounters or medical trips. Astonishingly, through discovery, we learned that this deprivation of medical information was not a simple mistake or oversight but instead a matter of policy and security protocols. Prisons justify this policy by claiming that inmates may use their knowledge regarding follow-up medical visits to plan criminal activity or escape. While security concerns are certainly understandable, this does not explain why inmates are kept in the dark regarding basic information such as their diagnosis and prognosis. Even if inmates are not allowed to know the exact time or date of their medical trips, they should be allowed to know how serious their condition is and what the repercussion will be if they do not receive proper and timely treatment.