azcentral.com — A young man sits in a locked room in the detention ward at Maricopa Medical Center, under sheriff's guard. He is not allowed a TV a cellphone or visitors. A video camera catches his every move. He has been isolated here for eight months and is expected to remain much longer, perhaps until he dies. But Robert Daniels is not charged with any crime.
Mar 1, 2007 View in Crawl 4
skwurlMar 1, 2007
Actually, if you read the article, he did do something wrong. He disobeyed his quarantine and decided to take a stroll out in public. I'm not sure if you know much about TB, but a it's insanely contagious and extremely dangerous - there's also no cure.He's there for a reason...but he should at least get a T.V.
jaydojMar 2, 2007
Its a d**kh**d move, but one song comes to mind.....All by myself, dont wanna be, all by myself, anymore.......
robotcitizenMar 3, 2007
Lets not draw parallels to HIV. That's daft. Multidrug resistant TB is potentially far worse than HIV. EMDRTB has no effective treatment and is spread via AIRBORNE particles. HIV in many cases can be maintained indefinitely with the right c**ktail of antiretrovirals. I feel sympathy for this guy but they are doing the right thing by quarantining him.
afpunkMar 3, 2007
If the man truly wasn't made completely aware of the severity of his condition, I don't see how you people can make him out to be the bad guy. How many of you have followed every single one of your doctor's orders to a tee? For instance, have any old, unfinished prescriptions lying around? Well, you might have inadvertantly helped in creating a new antibiotic resistant strain of whatever disease you were infected with. Awesome! Let's lock you away in a room with no amenities. After all, you COULD have caused the deaths of thousands of people by your negligence.Now, obviously his situation was more severe, but how many people know the real severity of TB that haven't had a close encounter with it? Its not as universally known as HIV or cancer, certainly. If he wasn't truly let on to how dangerous his condition really was, then he was just an ignorant, stubborn man ignoring doctor's orders.This doesn't excuse his actions, but it certainly does not make him equivalent to terrorists or whatever parallels idiots were trying to draw previously in the comments here.
Closed AccountMar 3, 2007
Well, the severity of TB was certainly known to this guy. Because of patient priviledge, the doctors, nurses, halfway house medical staff can't discuss the case. If they could, they would tell you they are required to inform all patients about the severity of the disease, the need to take the meds, the precautions necessary to protect the public, and what would happen to him if he didn't compley, i.e., civil commitment. I would be surprised if the hospital, board of public health, and the half way house didn't have it in writing that every thing was explained to him and he signed stating he understood. He is not the first, and unfortunately, will not be the last person confined due to noncompliance. In the late 80s early 90s, there were quite a number of people put in jail in California and NY for the same thing. This isn't new, folks. As to the lack of amenities -- since he is lying about being informed about his disease, I can't put too much credence in what he says about that.
insomn3akMar 3, 2007
His depression is only going to stack the deck against him, and may contribute to his death if he doesn't survive. What are these people thinking?!!
firehorseMar 6, 2007
Regarding the shower issue: At Maricopa Medical Center, the inmates are confined to one floor. There are community showers in each wing of that floor. None of the individual hospital/detention rooms have their own shower facilities. So in order to allow him to take a shower, they would risk infecting other inmate patients.