Judge Orders Timely Cancer Treatment For Inmate

88.5 WFDD - Public Radio For The Piedmont | By Paul Garber

Published June 12, 2019 at 5:16 PM EDT

A Surry County woman in the federal prison system has a court order that ensures she'll get timely treatment for breast cancer.

Catherine Eagles, a judge for the US Middle District of North Carolina, admonished federal officials for what she called a longstanding failure to make sure Angela Beck gets the treatment she needs.

According to the Winston-Salem Journal, Eagles' court order requires prison officials to coordinate with medical providers to get prompt tests and treatment.

Beck, who is 47, is serving a 14-year sentence in Aliceville, Alabama, for drug and firearms offenses.

She filed a federal lawsuit saying her prison waited over eight months for a biopsy after she found a lump in her breast in August 2017. It took another two months to schedule surgery.

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Paul Garber

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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Judge Orders Timely Cancer Treatment For Inmate

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