Another query: Why did the Corrections Department retain custody of a ventilator-dependent inmate for three nights when it knew that neither the jail nor the CTF provided on-site ventilator care?
"That was not our decision," said corrections chief Washington when I asked him for an explanation. "We provided the care directed to us by Greater Southeast Community Hospital," he said, and cited his department's e-mail to me: "Magbie was returned to the CTF from Greater Southeast with a patient discharge form with instructions for nasal oxygen at night as needed. No ventilator was ordered."
But does Washington's finger-pointing hold up?
According to a Superior Court e-mail reply, on Sept. 21 -- the day after Magbie's sentencing and overnight stay in the hospital -- a CTF doctor contacted Judge Retchin's law clerk, informed her that Magbie needed a ventilator when he slept and inquired about procedures to transfer him to Greater Southeast. The clerk consulted with the chief judge's liaison to corrections and was told that the doctor should speak with the Corrections Department's medical administrator, because the court cannot direct medical placements.
Washington acknowledged that a CTF physician, "acting on his own," discussed the ventilator situation with Magbie's attorney and that the two reached an agreement to have Magbie's mother bring her son's ventilator to the CTF on the morning of Sept. 24. Unfortunately, by the time she arrived, at approximately 10 a.m., her son, having difficulty breathing, had already been taken to Greater Southeast, where he later died.
Court, corrections and hospital bureaucrats have now scurried to their bunkers.
Jonathan Magbie wasn't always so little thought of.
Twenty-two years ago this month, a chipper 5-year old Jonathan "John-John" Magbie was invited to take part in a White House ceremony commemorating National Respiratory Therapy Week. He had suffered the paralyzing injury a year earlier and was breathing with the help of a mechanical device inserted in his neck and speaking through a battery-powered device that he operated with a flick of his tongue.
On the way to the White House, "John-John" told his doctor, Dean Sterling, director of respiratory care services at Children's Hospital, and nurse Nancy Rivers that he wanted to ask President Reagan something. After the ceremony, and as Reagan was saying hello to "John-John," the doctor said:
" 'John-John,' you had something you wanted to ask the president, didn't you?"
"Yes," said the boy. "What are you going to be for Halloween?"
Startled, the president replied: "I think I'll just keep being me. That's been tough enough recently" [Bob Levey's Washington, Oct. 29, 1982].
This Halloween, both are gone.
(For the record: I have never met Judge Retchin. I did, however -- along with other family and friends -- write a letter of recommendation last year to the judge in behalf of a jailed relative who was being sentenced on a felony conviction. At sentencing, Retchin credited him with time served in jail, ordered him into drug treatment and called for a subsequent assignment to a halfway house. He is now on probation and employed. As noted in an earlier column, the King family tree includes members who have attended Penn State and the state pen.)
kingc@washpost.com
