A 56-year-old Rawlins woman serving 10-15 years in prison for dealing meth is suing the former medical contractor for the Wyoming Department of Corrections, claiming negligent care led to her leg being amputated.
Janet Lynn Sanchez filed her lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming on Tuesday, alleging that YesCare Inc. and practitioners working for the company allowed her infected right leg to fester until it became an emergency that resulted in its amputation above the knee, according to the lawsuit and court records.
The ordeal began when Sanchez, who suffers from a number of health ailments, “began experiencing severe symptoms on or around late February 2024, including pain, swelling, drainage, (and) redness following (a) biopsy,” the lawsuit says.
After telling YesCare representatives during daily visits in the Wyoming Women’s Center in Lusk that her condition was worsening, she was denied “timely and adequate treatment,” according to the lawsuit.
Because of this, Sanchez’s action claims that she developed a “severe infection” and “continued to request medical care, but YesCare staff failed to take appropriate action, failed to send her to a hospital, and failed to provide necessary treatment.”
She was finally taken to a hospital outside the prison at the beginning of March 2024, “where she was diagnosed with a severe, advanced infection requiring immediate intervention,” the lawsuit says.
That intervention turned out to be cutting off her right leg above the knee, which happened March 4, 2024.
She goes on to allege in her lawsuit that “the amputation and resulting permanent disability were directly caused by Defendants’ failure to provide timely and adequate medical care.
“Defendants acted with deliberate indifference to (Sanchez’s) serious medical needs by ignoring her symptoms, delaying treatment, failing to provide proper medical care, and disregarding the substantial risk of serious harm,” the lawsuit says.
Sanchez is demanding a jury trial on her claims of physical injury, emotional distress, pain and suffering, loss of mobility and being permanently disabled. She seeks compensatory and punitive damages.
A Wednesday message to YesCare for a response to the allegations made by Sanchez wasn’t responded to, and neither was a follow-up message sent Thursday morning.
About YesCare
At the time, YesCare was just months from losing its contract with the Wyoming DOC after 18 years as the agency’s health care provider.
Its last two-year deal paid YesCare $39.7 million through June 30, 2024, compared to the $46.2 million contract it has now with Alabama-based NaphCare.
YesCare also is no stranger to courtrooms across the country, having been sued more than 1,000 times for claims ranging from negligent care to sexual abuse.
After losing its contract with the state, YesCare protested to the Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee in March 2024, saying it wrongly denied the bid in favor of a more expensive competitor.
While it may be true that the DOC chose a more expensive plan, there may have been other reasons the state cut ties with YesCare after nearly two decades, said Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, who was on the committee at the time.
“YesCare and (its earlier iteration) Corizon, I believe, have been sued over 1,000 times across the United States because they’ve not provided adequate health care to incarcerated folks,” said Provenza at the committee meeting. “And quite frankly, I’ve gotten complaints from folks who have people they love inside.
“This is a company that has a long track record of issues.”
About Sanchez
As for Sanchez, she’s not due to be released from prison until 2033 after at least two arrests for selling meth, court records show.
She’s now being housed at the Wyoming Medium Correctional Institution in Torrington. While it’s a men’s prison, she’s been transferred there because it’s better equipped to handle her disability, court records indicate.
After serving 60 days for possession of a controlled substance in 2017, she found big trouble in 2022, when she sold meth to an undercover police informant, according to documents in her court file.
She had struck an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty in that case to delivery of a controlled substance in return for a six- to 10-year prison sentence that would be suspended in favor of three years of supervised probation, the documents say.
But before the plea could be entered and ruled on by a judge, she was picked up again by police and drew a new charge of conspiracy to deliver controlled substances, in this case meth and oxycodone.
Because of that, the prosecutor withdrew the plea deal, and Sanchez was instead sentenced to 10-15 years in prison on the original 2022 drug charge.
That sentence was imposed April 6, 2023. Less than a year later, her leg was amputated.
Reduce My Sentence?
A month after the amputation on April 2, 2024, Sanchez filed a motion with the Carbon County District Court to have her sentence reduced because of the hardship the loss of the limb has had on her living in prison.
She requested the sentence to be basically cut in half to a term of four to seven years, according to the motion.
Her deteriorating medical condition will only get worse the longer she stays in prison, the motion said, outlining a list of ailments that are exacerbated by having the amputation.
“Ms. Sanchez is a (then) 54-year-old woman with a history of hypertension, class III obesity, severe venous disease complicated by ulcers, severe lymphatic disease, constipation, urinary incontinence, substance use disorder, and PTSD,” the motion says.
The Wyoming Department of Corrections lists Sanchez at 5 feet, 8 inches tall and 470 pounds.
She will only suffer more harm “in a prison setting,” it adds, offering alternative punishments like community supervision.
Because of the alleged botched medical care she got in prison, Sanchez “is now anticipating a potential prosthetic or spending her life in a wheelchair,” the motion says.
A little more than three weeks after requesting a reduced sentence on April 25, 2024, a Carbon County judge denied the motion without any further explanation.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
