After spending decades behind bars, incarcerated people are leaving prison with chronic care needs and are faced with deficiencies in the healthcare system.
In California, the volume of high-need patients is staggering. Prior to leaving prison, more than 18,000 former residents were diagnosed with high medical acuity, a medical term that refers to the severity and complexity of someone’s health needs, reported the Independent Voter News.
“It’s not the quality of healthcare that is the issue, it’s keeping people locked up until their health declines,” said San Quentin resident Jessie Milo. “We are at a greater risk when we re-enter society, due to our unfamiliarity with healthcare policies and procedures.”
Milo, 45, is a inside policy fellow for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which conducts the policy work to get the California Legislature to address deficiencies and inequalities in CDCR’s healthcare system.
Milo said that this healthcare issue was highlighted by Marcus Wali Henderson’s death after he spent nearly 30 years in prison. Henderson, who had been battling cancer, paroled from SQ in November 2024 to San Francisco and then relocated to Los Angeles to be closer to his mother and children.
“People have died in the first year of parole due to various healthcare issues,” Milo said. “These fatalities have not been an isolated occurrence because over the past five years I have seen multiple deaths.”
Milo said he pays attention to healthcare issues because there are preventive methods like getting people home sooner, so they don’t die in prison.
After leaving SQ, Henderson faced difficulties in obtaining his medical records; they would have helped him activate his medical insurance.
Henderson wrote a letter describing his experiences in his first 60 days on parole. He needed his prison medical records to verify his cancer diagnoses so that a primary care physician could make a referral to an oncologist in order for him to receive chemotherapy.
In the letter Henderson stated that when he was in prison he received chemotherapy every two weeks. In the real world he wrote, “I felt like a leper. No medical doctor wanted to touch me without the proper insurance.”
“I’m now seeing our dysfunctional healthcare system firsthand.” Henderson wrote. “I still haven’t received the chemotherapy, but by the grace of God, I survived prison. I pray I can survive this.”
On Thursday May 15, 2025 Henderson died from complications related to cancer.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a major policy update in April 2023 that gave states Medicaid waivers for particular healthcare services within 90 days prior to a person’s release, according to Independent Voter News. California was the initial state to apply for and receive a waiver.
In December 2023 the U.S. Congress approved a law that required states’ Medicaid programs to cover certain health services for incarcerated youth. This new legislation went in effect in January 2025.
As a result, federal correctional healthcare policies now emphasize reentry and continued healthcare for incarcerated youth after release, stated the article.
“As incarcerated people we know the deficiency in the system, so we have to be more proactive in our healthcare.” Milo said. ”The key to surviving chronic illnesses is those early diagnoses. We need to get those invasive and uncomfortable examinations.”