PrimeCare Medical Services Gives Patient Pepto-Bismol Instead of Insulin

PHILADELPHIA — The estate of a Coatesville man who died in Chester County Prison while awaiting sentencing on drug charges has sued the prison, as well as the facility’s private health-care provider, PrimeCare Medical Services, for allegedly mistreating his acute diabetes. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, contends that medical officials at the prison in Pocopson ignored the fact that Rae-mone Aaron Carter Jr. had a history of diabetes and neglected to seek hospital care for him until it was too late to prevent his death. 

Instead, the suit alleges, Carter was given Pepto-Bismol instead of insulin for his symptoms. One of the attorneys for Carter’s estate, which includes his mother, Lisa M. Shelton of Lancaster, and four children, called the way Carter was treated “a colossal failure.” “Mr. Carter would be alive today if fundamental standards of professional medical practice were followed by his caregivers at the Prison,” commented Michael F. Barrett, an attorney with the law firm of Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett, & Bendesky, which filed the suit. The complaint seeks compensatory as well as punitive damages. Carter, 26, was a member of the large drug ring led by Coatesville resident Phillip Dimatteo, which was broken up by state, federal, and local police in 2011. Carter pleaded guilty to drug charges connected with the ring in late 2011, and was scheduled to be sentenced in May 2012. He passed away on March 16, 2012. In the six-count complaint, his estate alleges that Carter showed escalating symptoms of diabetic problems over a period of approximately one week starting March 11, 2012. He died in Chester County Hospital after being transferred there from the prison.

The suit says that various employees of PrimeCare Medical services, which operates the health facilities at the prison, ignored the fact that he had a family history of diabetes and delayed administering routine blood tests or seeking hospitalization.

“He died a totally unnecessary death,” Barrett said Thursday. “He wasn’t being seen by nurses, he wasn’t being seen by doctors. He wasn’t being treated for diabetes, he was being treated with Pepto-Bismol.”

Barrett said Carter’s death constituted cruel and unusual punishment and also “an unjustified intrusion on personal security without due process of law” – because Carter was in prison when he got sick, he could not seek treatment on his own.

Chester County officials said Thursday they could not comment on the suit as they had not yet been notified of it.