A Crisis of Neglect: What the OIG's SeaTac Report Reveals About Prison Healthcare - A Taste of What I Lived Through

When I first read the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Detention Center SeaTac (Sept. 2025), it felt less like reading a government report and more like reading a mirror of my own lived experience. The findings laid bare what I — and thousands of others — have endured: a prison healthcare system so broken that pain, disability, and death are not outliers but predictable outcomes.

The SeaTac report is one of the most detailed and damning inspections yet. Its findings echo those from other facilities — including FCI Sheridan, where I was incarcerated — and they expose systemic failures that span the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). In this blog, I will break down the report’s key findings, fully cite its sources, and connect them to my own experience of medical neglect that left me permanently disabled.

A System in “Crisis”

The OIG began its report with a stark assessment: healthcare at FDC SeaTac was in “crisis.” At the time of inspection in December 2024, 10 of 20 Health Services Department positions were vacant, including the Clinical Director role that had been unfilled for at least 18 months. Based on the BOP’s own staffing projection tool, the facility actually needed 40 positions — double its current authorization — to provide minimally adequate care (OIG, SeaTac Inspection, Report 25-081, Sept. 2025, at i–ii).

For those of us who lived this reality, “crisis” is not an exaggeration. When the system lacks doctors, nurses, and basic support staff, the result is predictable: delays, denials, and devastation.

Delays That Kill

The OIG found that at SeaTac, 62 percent (18 of 29) of serious medical requests were never addressed by a healthcare provider (OIG, SeaTac Inspection, at i, 6). The report highlighted cases where incarcerated people begged for medical attention for respiratory distress, severe pain, or other urgent issues — only to be ignored.

One person with an abdominal hernia “approximately the size of a basketball” waited nearly four months after reporting increased pain and swelling before receiving an evaluation. Even then, further delays meant the surgery needed was never performed before release (id. at 5). Another person with a family history of breast cancer waited 14 months for an ultrasound after reporting a breast lump. Only then did a biopsy confirm a growth (ultimately benign), but by that time nearly a year and a half had passed since the initial request (id. at 7).

I remember submitting countless sick call requests myself — for serious conditions that were worsening daily. Like those at SeaTac, my requests were often ignored or lost in a broken system. When I finally received attention, it was either months or years late, and by then the damage had already been done. My permanent disabilities today are not the result of my crimes, but of this deliberate neglect.

Routine and Preventive Care: Abandoned

Healthcare is not just about emergencies. It is also about monitoring chronic illnesses and preventing disease. The SeaTac inspection revealed staggering failures:

• Backlog of 480 overdue blood tests because there was no phlebotomist on staff since June 2024 (id. at 9).

• More than half of diabetic inmates were not receiving necessary A1C tests to monitor blood sugar levels (id.).

• None of the 23 inmates over age 50 had received recommended cognitive screenings (id. at 10).

• 82 percent of inmates between 45–75 had not been offered colorectal cancer screenings (id.).

• Nearly 30 percent of new arrivals did not receive intake screenings within 24 hours, as required by BOP policy. Some waited more than 100 days (id. at 11–12).

  
  

When preventive care is abandoned, treatable conditions become deadly. At SeaTac, one inmate with a family history of colorectal cancer waited nearly five months after a positive screening before receiving follow-up care. This mirrors the OIG’s broader finding that across BOP, colonoscopies following positive cancer screenings were often delayed 3–9 months (id. at 10–11).

When I entered custody, my own medical care was grossly delayed. My chronic conditions were disregarded. Preventive measures that could have caught worsening problems early were never offered. By the time I received minimal care, the damage was irreversible.

Unsafe Medication Practices

The OIG also documented what many of us already know: pill line is chaos. At SeaTac, inspectors observed:

• Medications pre-crushed and stored together in plastic bags.

• Crushed medications retained for reuse.

• Failure to require inmates to provide proper ID before receiving meds.

• Narcotic safes left unlocked.

• Evening pill lines — including insulin administration — conducted at inconsistent times, sometimes as early as noon (id. at 12–14).

  
  

One diabetic inmate suffered repeated medical emergencies, including four incidents of loss of consciousness, because insulin was administered at irregular intervals (id. at 13).

I too experienced inconsistent medication schedules and mismanagement that put my health at risk. For those with chronic illnesses, the difference between life and death can be as simple as whether a nurse shows up on time with the right dose. At SeaTac and elsewhere, the BOP repeatedly failed this most basic responsibility.

Unsanitary, Dangerous Conditions

Inspectors also found unsanitary and disorganized conditions in SeaTac’s Health Services Department: overflowing trash, contaminated lab specimens left unrefrigerated, expired medical supplies, and insect-attracting food left in examination rooms (id. at 15–16).

These conditions are more than cosmetic problems. They pose direct risks of infection, misdiagnosis, and disease spread. For incarcerated people already vulnerable due to delayed care and chronic conditions, such environments are lethal.

A National Pattern of Neglect

What happened at SeaTac is not unique. The OIG has issued nearly identical findings at FCI Sheridan (May 2024), FMC Devens (Dec. 2024), FCI Tallahassee (Nov. 2023), and others (id. at 8, App. 2). Each report shows the same failures: understaffing, delays, unsafe practices, and preventable suffering.

When I was at FCI Sheridan, I lived these same failures. The OIG’s findings there — backlogs of outside medical appointments, chronic care left unattended, and unsafe medication practices — matched what I experienced firsthand. The SeaTac report simply confirms that what happened to me was not an accident; it was systemic.

The Human Cost

The OIG concludes that SeaTac’s health services were “unacceptable and created risks of undetected illness, worsening of medical conditions, adverse medication effects, and spread of disease” (id. at 3). That conclusion could apply to nearly every federal prison today.

The human cost of these failures is immense. People lose their vision, their limbs, their ability to work, their lives. Families lose fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters to neglect that would never be tolerated in a hospital or community clinic.

I live with permanent medical disabilities because of the same kind of negligence documented in this report. My story is not unique. It is part of a national pattern of deliberate indifference that violates not only human rights but also the Constitution’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.

From Reports to Responsibility

The OIG has made 11 recommendations to the BOP following this inspection — from improving sick call tracking, to hiring phlebotomists, to ensuring sanitation (id. at 26). The BOP has formally “concurred” with these recommendations (id. at App. 4–5). But as the OIG itself warned, “given the scale and scope of the issues… the BOP needs to demonstrate that it can effectuate operational improvements… for a more sustained period before the OIG can conclude that the BOP has adequately addressed the problems” (id. at App. 5).

In other words: promises are not enough. Until the BOP is held accountable — in court, by Congress, and by the public — these reports will remain tragic déjà vu.

Conclusion

The OIG’s SeaTac inspection is not just another government report. It is an indictment. It documents how the federal government fails to provide even minimal healthcare to the people it incarcerates. It confirms what I and countless others have endured: neglect that causes lasting harm and sometimes costs lives.

For me, the scars are permanent. For many others, the damage is still unfolding behind prison walls.

The question now is whether society will accept this as “normal,” or whether we will demand that the Bureau of Prisons fulfill its most basic legal and moral duty: to provide humane, timely, and competent medical care to the people it locks away.

Until then, the words of the OIG report stand as both evidence and warning: the crisis is real, it is systemic, and it is costing human lives every day.

References

• U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Detention Center SeaTac, Evaluation and Inspections Division Report 25-081 (Sept. 2025).

• OIG, Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Correctional Institution Sheridan, E&I Report 24-070 (May 2024).

• OIG, Inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Medical Center Devens, E&I Report 25-009 (Dec. 2024).

• OIG, Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Medical Staffing Challenges, E&I Report 16-02 (Mar. 2016).