Guy discusses how the unavailability of Band-Aids in prison mirrors the lack of basic compassion.
I never really used Band-Aids on the outside, although I always had a supply in the medicine cabinet. I know that they help a small wound stay clean and free of infection, encourage faster healing, and generally promote wellness.
Sure, I would occasionally use one, perhaps to seal a sliced finger or cover a nasty abrasion, one just begging to get infected—you know the kind. But I didn’t cover every little boo-boo. My kids were another story. They would run to me with small scratches and tears in their eyes but act brave—brave as they could given the obviously dire circumstances. With a little Bactine, a Band-Aid, and some love, I could patch them up and send them back into battle, perpetuating for one more day the illusion that I could keep them safe.
So, is a Band-Aid a real medical aid, or is that all just marketing? Perhaps they are just a placebo, making you feel like you are taking action or doing something. Maybe any wound small enough to be addressed by a Band-Aid doesn’t need to be addressed at all; it will heal just fine on its own. This is not a question to keep you awake at night, but I ponder it because my Band-Aid privileges have been revoked. I can’t even get a Band-Aid, let alone choose to put one on. Now that I am in prison, I ponder many things, this being one of them.
Prisons are opaque places; it is difficult to know why things are the way they are. Nobody, including the staff and guards, really knows (or cares) why this or why that. If you go to the pill-call window and ask for a Band-Aid, you will be told sternly to fill out a medical request. Asking why or showing the nurse your boo-boo will get you a firmer command to move on, and now the guard is sidling towards you. Time to go!
Is it that Band-Aids are expensive, so they’re controlling costs? Perhaps incarcerated people have devised an illicit use for Band-Aids, and they must be limited. There is no way to find out. You can’t buy them at the canteen, you can’t buy them in your quarterly package. You have to submit a medical request, and in one to three days, you will receive a slip to go to the clinic and see a nurse. Often, you will never receive that slip, and after a week or so, you can either give up or resubmit your request.
Of course, it would be silly to show up asking for a Band-Aid two days after an injury. Any minor injury will have been sealed and beginning to scab up by then. The nurses would be angry at you for wasting their time. So, unless your wound becomes seriously infected, it doesn’t make any sense to apply for a Band-Aid; you aren’t going to get one.
My opinion is that the prison fears that incarcerated people will try and treat serious wounds—wounds that need stitches, puncture wounds, burns—with Band-Aids, and to avoid those possibilities, they withhold that resource. But like most efforts here, this intent is hindered by the ever-so-MacGyver-like population, which has no problem improvising bandages (among other things).
There is no illusion here that anyone cares about you, whether you heal or get an infection. There will be no sympathy, no encouragement. These people are not our mothers; we are not six, and no, it is not going to be alright. We are not going to be alright. More specifically, I am not going to be alright. That’s the message.
Of course, I don’t spend my days thinking about bandages and their ease of access. No, it’s just a small thing, nothing in itself but a telling aspect of this place and its thousand inconveniences and restrictions. I live in a locked room—often locked for days—and come out only when allowed. I eat (actually, they call it “feed”; i.e., we go to feeding) when they tell me. They yell and strobe flashlights to urge us to gobble our food. We walk the track in circles, no stopping. The guards are sir and ma’am, and many of them are cruel, deliberately so.
It is stressful. And I can’t even administer self-care. I can’t put on a Band-Aid, tell myself it will be okay, maintain the illusion that it will be okay, and pretend that I matter.
