The sister of a mentally ill Alexandria jail inmate who died in custody is suing the company that handles medical care at the facility, alleging that he did not receive adequate treatment.
Farah Saleh Farah, 24, died of dehydration on Jan. 23, 2008, after having refused to take his medication for schizophrenia.
At the time, he was in custody at the Alexandria Detention Center for a probation violation. Farah had been jailed for carrying a concealed weapon from Nov. 28 to Jan. 4.
Obah Walker, Farah’s sister, filed a lawsuit against Correct Care Solutions, which provides health services at jails and prisons, and three of its employees in federal court in Alexandria.
The lawsuit alleges that the CCS employees — two nurses and a medical administrator — should have secured emergency care for Farah when he stopped eating and drinking and recognized that his dehydration could be fatal.
CCS Executive Vice President Patrick Cummiskey declined to comment on the lawsuit or Farah’s care.
In an e-mail, he said the company takes “great pride in our care of our patients” and the “Alexandria staff is focused on quality patient care.”
Farah, an Alexandria resident, was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2004.
According to the lawsuit, he stopped taking his psychiatric medication while in jail and was sent to Mount Vernon Hospital.
On Jan. 7, a judge ordered Farah released from the hospital, on the condition that he take his medication. When he reported to his probation officer on Jan. 10, he did not have his medication with him and was arrested for violating probation.
In jail, Farah “ate and drank virtually nothing,” the lawsuit alleges, and CCS staff did not treat him even though guards described his condition as “cadaverous” in the days before his death.
The suit claims that CCS staff knew about Farah’s mental-health issues ad neglected to make him take his medication and treat his dehydration.
The defendants “had to know, and did know, that he was at imminent risk for suffering very serious, possibly fatal, consequences from his dehydration, and that emergency measures had to be taken immediately to prevent his further deterioration,” the lawsuit says.
About 3,000 inmates at local jails die each year, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics report. The last inmate to die at the Alexandria facility was a man who hanged himself in January 2009, Alexandria Undersheriff Tony Davis said. Since the sheriff’s office wasn’t named in the Farah lawsuit, Davis said he would not comment on it.
The jail holds about 450 inmates, according to the sheriff’s office annual report.
