Jemal Tipton – Macomb

topics: delayed release due to COVID, contacting Governor Whitmer, coming home

[00:00:00] Jemal: Yes. And, uh, my wife will be pulling up in a minute to call, so it’s only gonna take a few minutes to go get the food. I’ll be right back, but Okay. Until then, we can talk.

[00:00:10] Natalie: All right, sounds good. So, I have around 10 questions, and of course you can kind of, you know, take questions off in different directions and share what you want to, and then, um, yeah, that’s, that’s pretty much it.

[00:00:27] Natalie: So the first question is, Kind of covering preliminarily, um, could you say your name for the record and then share how long you were incarcerated for and when you were

[00:00:39] Jemal: released? My name is Jamal Edward Tipton, j e m a l, Edward Tipton. I was incarcerated at the age of 17. I was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole life with the possibility of parole.

[00:00:57] Jemal: Plus two years for the gun and due to the Miller versus Alabama, and Montgomery versus Louisiana. I served 33 and a half years in prison.

[00:01:17] Natalie: Did you stay in one facility for most of the time you’re incarcerated or did you get transferred around?

[00:01:23] Jemal: No, they transferred around at their leisure. You have no say over how long you’re at a certain institution. The only thing you can do is allow your behavior to dictate how long they may keep you.

[00:01:37] Jemal: Mm-hmm. But when they say it’s time to go, there’s nothing you can do. You must pack your bags and leave. Yeah.

[00:01:46] Natalie: Um, what can you tell me about how healthcare in prisons was prior to covid

[00:01:51] Pause: 19?

[00:01:56] Pause: Very

[00:01:57] Jemal: ineffective.

[00:01:58] Pause: Mm-hmm. Sounds about right.

[00:02:04] Natalie: Was it different from facility to facility or was it kind of standardly not great?

[00:02:11] Jemal: It was pretty non effective from facility to facilities. Certain facilities, you may get a little bit more. Attention and care and, uh, but no, it was basically standard from facility to facility. Poor, ineffective healthcare.

[00:02:32] Natalie: Did you ever have to, like, receive any medical care that was pretty serious, like having to go to the hospital or anything? Or was it mostly just like you had a cold or a fever?

[00:02:43] Pause: Um,

[00:02:46] Jemal: I had a torn meniscus. Which is, uh, a torn ligament in my knee. Mm-hmm. And it took them exactly five years to the day to do something about it.

[00:03:01] Natalie: Oh my gosh. I’m guessing that really messed up the meniscus then if it wasn’t able to like get care for that long.

[00:03:12] Jemal: Right, right, right. And truth be told, I had to. I had to bend the truth in order to get the necessary medical attention and surgery that I needed to repair the meniscus in my knees.

[00:03:30] Natalie: What do you mean by that?

[00:03:31] Natalie: Did you have to like exaggerate it to make it seem more serious or, yes.

[00:03:35] Jemal: Okay. Yes, I did. Yes, I did because for the first three years I was very honest with ’em about what was going on with my knee, and they just kept telling me, Okay. Okay. Don’t do this, don’t do that. But I need to walk. Even walking hurting.

[00:03:54] Jemal: They told me to move around as less as possible, and then there was another incarcerated individual that had been through the healthcare system before and he told me, he said, the only way you’re going to get them to give you some real medical treatment for that is to not tell ’em the truth. You have to lie to them.

[00:04:13] Jemal: Mm-hmm. And I lied to him and I told ’em it was a lot more serious than what it was. And however that got the job done, they fixed it. They, again, it took two years, but they finally did the surgery to, uh, repair my torn meniscus.

[00:04:38] Natalie: Can you tell me a little bit about, um, how social interaction was like within the facility and how much freedom you had to walk around before Covid happened?

[00:04:48] Jemal: Uh, we had yard, mm-hmm. Uh, at the facility I was at, which was McCone Correctional Facility. And each institution is different about how long you’re allowed to be outside, outside of your cell.

[00:05:02] Jemal: Okay. But the institution that I was at, I want to say that we were outside. We were outside. We had privilege to be outside at least four to six hours a day. Okay. Outside, but we were outside ourselves. I want to say maybe because we had day rooms in the unit. I want to say we had an extra four or so hours outside of ourselves.

[00:05:31] Jemal: I mean out from outside to be in the unit. Okay. We had about four hours in the unit, and I want to say four to six hours, depending on what institution you was at. We were where we were outside before Covid.

[00:05:45] Natalie: What kind of things did you do with that time?

[00:05:50] Jemal: Uh, when I did go to the yard, I pretty much exercised. I ran a lot. I used to run five miles a day, four or five times a week. I used to about some, I used to socialize on the yard. I used to be on the phone. If I was in the unit, I would utilize that time to get on the JPay machine, send j pays out, uh, watch TV and stuff in the, uh, day rooms.

[00:06:17] Jemal: And if I was not in the day rooms, I would be in the school building in the class, in the library, trying to learn something.

[00:06:30] Natalie: So how did you first hear about Covid and what did the first responses look like?

[00:06:37] Jemal: I heard about Covid after I heard about, well, the official word about Covid came out, I want to believe in the middle of March, give or take.

[00:06:52] Jemal: Well, they made it official, but before. The official announcement was announced. We as an institution at Macomb Correctional Facility was locked down from like December, I mean, uh, from March the fourth.

[00:07:13] Jemal: They locked us down about March the fourth because they said it was a bad strand of the flu running around, and they were giving out their flu. They locked the unit down. They came around to each cell and asked the two people that were in the cell, did they have any symptoms. If so, they would give us their flu.

[00:07:38] Jemal: So our movement was pretty much restricted, but we were still able to go to the chow hall, and I believe we were still able to go to the yard because they, we had no understanding of covid and. Everything that it entailed. Mm-hmm. And I want to say it was like March the 10th or 11th. Might even been, yeah, the 10th or 11th.

[00:08:05] Jemal: They blew emergency account again and pretty much locked us down. We were head and ourselves. Uh, we had no yard movement.

[00:08:22] Jemal: No phone, very little phone movement. Well, yeah, yeah. You know there, yeah. There was no phone because they were unsure what it was, and they limited our movement outside. Like I said, they took pretty much outside. They limited our movement inside for a minute. We could only, we were only allowed to interact with the people on our particular floor.

[00:08:50] Jemal: Hmm.

[00:08:57] Natalie: How soon were things like, um, masks and tests available to you guys?

[00:09:05] Jemal: I want to say a test came, I guess after developed the standard testing for it. They, again, we were already locked down, so they brought the, um, Uh, the armed forces, they were not armed. We seen, but they brought some military forces cause they were all in fatigues.

[00:09:28] Jemal: And they called us down to the day room, room by room and they swabbed our noses and told us they’ll let us know. As far as masks are concerned, I wanna say two, maybe three weeks. After they knew what Covid was, two, maybe I’ll say two weeks after they knew what Covid was. So it was probably towards the end of March when they started bringing masks around.

[00:10:08] Natalie: So you mentioned that they started to limit phone calls. Was that just so that your movement was lessened and you stayed in your room more or were there other reasons for that, or was

[00:10:18] Jemal: No, that was, that was it. Yeah. Coke one thing, once they diagnosed, and I guess they really found out how serious Covid was, we were pretty much in our cells.

[00:10:30] Jemal: Unless we had to use the bathroom and then that was one at a time, but you have 60 people per floor. But they told us we could only go to the restroom one at a time, but that eventually loosened up and they allowed people on the floor. You could go in and out your cell on the floor and you could use the phone that was on the floor.

[00:10:59] Jemal: But it’s only two people at a time. Mm-hmm.

[00:11:07] Natalie: So what would happen if someone was tested positive and they had like a cellmate or something?

[00:11:14] Jemal: If somebody tested positive for Covid, they would take that person that tested positive for Kobe immediately to segregation. They would immediately take him to segregation. And

[00:11:33] Jemal: I think they would quarantine their bunky because they had, uh, communal, what they call communal. Uh, they shared a communal space. Mm-hmm. And because the bunky had it, they had to quarantine the other bunky in a different housing unit because they wanted, if you didn’t have any symptoms of anything, there was no needing them.

[00:11:58] Jemal: Putting you in segregation because you didn’t have any symptoms. So they put you somewhere for, at the time, I think it was 14 days, to see if you would come up with symptoms.

[00:12:14] Natalie: So was there a change in kind of the social atmosphere in the prison as well when this started? Or how did that like affect people on a social level as they interacted with each

[00:12:26] Jemal: other? Um, I’m not going to say you were forced to, but at that point, because there was limited interaction as opposed to just your cellmate and the people that were on the particular floor with you, those the only people you were, uh, allowed to interact with.

[00:12:46] Jemal: So it limited, some people got to know they monkeys more. Some people got to know the people on the, uh, floor more because. You couldn’t interact with the people you normally interacted with. So some people just got a little bit closer to the people that were around them or sheltered themselves more.

[00:13:10] Natalie: So you mentioned a little bit about kind of how those were tested, positive, be isolated, and segregation. Did they receive like the proper medical care that they needed or was it just that they were put in a different area?

[00:13:26] Jemal: From my understanding, from the people that I would talk to in the beginning, they were, they were put in a different area.

[00:13:33] Jemal: They were, um, I don’t, I, I, I don’t know about medication cause I’m not sure that they had medication at the time for it before. Oh, they were, they were giving them the flu in the beginning. Mm-hmm. Thermo, thermo flu. They were giving them thermo flu in the beginning, but when the net didn’t work and they took them to the other unit.

[00:13:55] Jemal: I am unsure about the medical care or what they did once they went to the other unit. Okay. What time they treated it? I’m unsure how they treated it.

[00:14:08] Natalie: Were there different phases of this in your time there or was it mostly like how, how when did, were you released exactly what was the date?

[00:14:18] Jemal: August the 25th. 2020.

[00:14:21] Natalie: 2020. So that was still. That wasn’t exactly the be, it was like the middle, kind of the, the pandemic from my understanding. Were there differences in how things developed within the facility?

[00:14:33] Natalie: Did things like improve or get, like change as the months went on?

[00:14:40] Jemal: Yes. Things changed because the, the criteria and I guess the protocols for Covid changed. Mm-hmm. As certain things changed in the free world. It would, it might get to us a week or so later, maybe two weeks later. That’s why the masks were late coming to us.

[00:14:59] Jemal: The people in the free world were wearing them, but we had no access to ’em. So they started having them maid. So we got ’em late. And then some of the officers, the council would come past and say, well, they upfront, they said, this is what the protocol was. But by the time it got to each individual unit, The officers and sometime the counselors allowed the protocol were dictated the protocol based on what they thought or how they felt.

[00:15:30] Jemal: Oh, there was no universal way of interacting or treating us because different people, administrative people in interpreted things differently.

[00:15:47] Natalie: Did people on the staff. Kind of followed these precautions as well, or did they mostly just dictate and tell you guys what to do?

[00:15:58] Jemal: They were inconsistent upfront with how they, I guess, put out the, um, the parameters about how people would interact and whatnot. And again, by the time it got to us, somebody, maybe some officer interpreted the way they wanted to.

[00:16:18] Jemal: So, And then when somebody else from another unit may happen to go in a particular unit and was like, what y’all doing? Well, they said this, this, that, and the other. Well, we are doing it different in our unit, but this officer said we have to do it this, we have to do it this way. Mm-hmm. So there was no consistency in how they moved about and you know, there was no consistency to their.

[00:16:48] Jemal: To how, uh, COVID was and the protocols played out. There was no consistency. Mm-hmm.

[00:16:56] Natalie: So you mentioned people weren’t able to use the phones. How long did that last for?

[00:17:03] Jemal: Well, they already had us on 15 minute restriction phone calls anyway. Mm-hmm. And a lot of guys used to get on their phone and maybe stay for three or four calls, which was an hour.

[00:17:16] Jemal: In 45 min, uh, an hour, 45 minutes to an hour, but when Covid came along, you were only able to make one phone call for 15 minutes. Then at that point, you would have to wait a half an hour before you were allowed to get back on the phone again, to allow other people to get on the phone,

[00:17:39] Jemal: and depending on what unit you were in, officers. Dictated how that went as well.

[00:17:48] Natalie: So the experience was very different from unit to unit because of the different ways that officers were kind of interpreting the guidelines. Yeah. Okay. What did it look like in your specific

[00:18:02] Jemal: unit? Well, me working maintenance, they allowed us to come out in my unit and we had to take over area where people were allowed to stand and wait on the phone.

[00:18:14] Jemal: And then once they waited on the phone, you would’ve to sign up on a, a phone list. So who wants to use the phone? And after this person got off the phone, then the officer would say, okay, who’s up next? Then they would go standing that box so the officers is monitored or dictated how the, uh, how the phone situation went

[00:18:40] Natalie: with that many people, like in a unit.

[00:18:43] Natalie: Did you guys get through the whole list?

[00:18:47] Jemal: Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn’t. Depending on when they, uh, they’ll lock us down. When a child came, when it was time for breakfast, lunch of dinner, whatever was going on, they had to stop. They will feed you your food. Cause they would send everybody to their cell, then they would call, uh, Different cells at a time, and you would just lined up, get your food, and after that was over with, they would send the certain people around to collect all the trash.

[00:19:19] Jemal: And after all the trash was collected, then they would say, okay, uh, the, uh, the floors are back open, and who was next for the phone? But sometimes that would get diverted, you know what I’m saying? Because so much going on. Well, who on the phone? Well, he on the phone. Well, I got next. No, he got next. So it was some confusion.

[00:19:44] Pause: Hmm. But,

[00:19:54] Natalie: so I’m, I’m pretty sure I can assume that, you know, outside programming shut down. Did that come back while you were still there or was it completely gone the whole time?

[00:20:07] Jemal: Uh, when I was there,

[00:20:14] Jemal: they had limited, limited, okay. They had limited action to the, uh, school building, which were where the programs were, and

[00:20:28] Jemal: they started to relax a little bit just before I got out of, but I want to say, Uh, that March, April, may, June, July.

[00:20:42] Jemal: No. It pretty much dictated everything because again, everything was changing from day to day.

[00:20:49] Natalie: Did the pandemic affect your release at all? Yes,

[00:20:52] Jemal: it did.

[00:20:58] Pause: How so?

[00:21:02] Jemal: I had a public hearing scheduled for April the 24th, one of the la when they blew emergency count, they understood that COVID was a worldwide issue, not just an in. It wasn’t just an institution. And they understood that all court proceedings shut down as well, which meant my public hearing. Was held along with the other individuals that were waiting on public hearings were held in limbo.

[00:21:37] Jemal: The last public hearing, I want to believe that they had was March the 13th, because I know a guy that was going, cause I was trying to ask him the process of being taken down to Jackson and the whole process. I seen him on the yard maybe a day or so. The, the day he went, the next day I seen him on the yard.

[00:21:56] Jemal: I said, ask him, did he go? He said, yeah. I asked him, how’d it go? He said, I don’t know. But we was the last public hearing, public, public hearing that they had before, uh, co I mean, yeah, just, yep. A at as COVID started around March the 13th or 14th is when they had the last, since the physical public hearing.

[00:22:22] Jemal: And because of the new technology, the American Friend Service Committee, the, uh, The A C L U and a few other big organizations, somehow or another got together and they asked Governor Whitner, Whitmer, you have the technology. Could you please not allow Covid to hold these guys in their process up because Covid could kill him.

[00:22:50] Jemal: So why continue to allow the process to linger on when you have the technology in your hands? To allow these to go on, and it could be virtually and June, early June, late May, early June is when they had their first virtual public hearing because of Covid, and I was the fourth individual to have my public hearing via virtually due to Covid in Michigan.

[00:23:29] Jemal: My public hearing was supposed to be April the 24th. I end up having it June the fourth

[00:23:40] Jemal: in three months delay. Yeah,

[00:23:49] Jemal: and to piggyback off of that, the decision came back in. That was June. I guess our decisions came back in July.

[00:24:05] Jemal: Yeah. I believe our decisions came back July 17th, give or take, and they had allowed a little bit more movement because even maintenance, they would only allow us to work in the units that we were in. But by this time we were able to. Uh, be out and about a little bit more, go to other units, almost as normal with covid, but we had to be masked up and everything of that nature, which, uh, is obvious.

[00:24:36] Jemal: And when we got our, uh, we got our decisions back in July, I wanna say about 17. So me and the guy that came home the same day that I did, she told us our house date was September the 22nd. And the guy that I was with, he did 40 years. I had only did 33 at the time, 33 and a half. At that time he did 40 something and he asked the lady, he said, why are they holding our out dates and until September?

[00:25:07] Jemal: Well, they want y’all to go through a program. And he said, what program? No programs are running. We all know nothing is happening. Nothing is moving. We’ve taken every program that we were allowed to take. So why are you saying that we have to sit here extra month? Cause we would not be going to a program because they’re not running any, why do we need to sit here?

[00:25:32] Jemal: She calls the, the hearing, uh, the parole board liaison called somebody and the gentleman that I was with, wife. Wrote a very extensive letter explaining her position and all the programs we had taken, and she was very detailed in her response to them about you would just be keeping us there and extra month and exposing us to possibly dying.

[00:26:07] Jemal: Mm. Why would you do that? When we have a release date, and I don’t know who or what, but two days later, She called us back over there and she told us that our out date is switched from September the 22nd to August the 25th was, which, a month earlier.

[00:26:32] Pause: That’s good. Yes, it,

[00:26:36] Natalie: I’m surprised that they would do something that contradictory of being like, oh, you do a programming when there’s no programs really running. None. And, but they keep, would it, the program really take

[00:26:49] Jemal: that long when September 22nd rolled around and we still haven’t taken this program because there’s no programs that being ran, then what you going to tell us?

[00:26:59] Jemal: Hmm. So what they’re, what the institution, because they went from 14 days, you had to be quarantined to 10 days, to five days, and then it got to three. And when he got to three, well, before I had my public hearing, I asked the counselors, I asked the warden himself, I said, I’m scheduled for a virtual public hearing on June 4th via Zoom.

[00:27:34] Jemal: I said, God forbid I catch Covid between now and then. How does that affect my, uh, virtual public hearing? The warden Dallas said they had no idea, well, can we do something to get an idea? Because I, I, I, I want to know what’s going on. How did that affect me? And I talked to another parole war liaison, cause it was two of them.

[00:28:04] Jemal: And she, she sent it up the flag pole and she said even if they had to mask me up, And whatever we had to do that my public hearing via video or Zoom would be held whether I had covid or not. Thank God I didn’t catch it. Everything went off as plan. And then when we were getting ready to come home, you have to go over there.

[00:28:30] Jemal: You have to take another COVID test. And at this point, there was some guys that were not allowed to go home in the beginning because they had covid, they had out days. And they said they cannot come home. They, they will not release people to the public if they had covid. So some guys had it, they couldn’t go and they had to stay longer until they no longer had they no longer tested positive, then they allowed them to go home.

[00:29:03] Jemal: But about time I went home, they said even if I had it or not, they would send me home and I would just have to quarantine with my family.

[00:29:22] Jemal: So they went from not letting people go home with Covid to letting people go home. You just have to quarantine

[00:29:27] Natalie: with your family.

[00:29:32] Natalie: Well, that’s good. At least like they’re not just extending people’s safe Well, and especially when you know the care isn’t the best. In prison. I think, um, someone else told me a story of one man having covid and, and hiding it because he didn’t want his release to be delayed. And then when he was released, he had to go to the hospital cause it had gotten so bad.

[00:29:52] Jemal: Yep. That happened quite a few times. Yep. That happened quite a few times. Can you gimme a few minutes? Mm-hmm. I just wanted, I wanna get this food from my wife. I’ll be right back. Of course, few.

[00:37:02] Pause: Hello. Hi. Sorry about that. No, you’re good. Uh, what’d you get to eat?

[00:37:14] Jemal: Uh, she cooked some, uh, yesterday. Oh, yesterday she cooked some, uh, lamb chops, sausages, hamburgers, broccoli salad.

[00:37:28] Jemal: Sounds good. Yeah.

[00:37:32] Natalie: Okay. Uh, um, we were talking about how the release process had changed with the pandemic.

[00:37:39] Jemal: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a constant change. Mm-hmm.

[00:37:51] Natalie: What was it like coming home?

[00:37:57] Pause: Freeing.

[00:38:01] Jemal: I got home. I had, uh, well, when I first got in the car again, I had never been, I hadn’t been in the car in as a. As a citizen. I hadn’t been in a car in 33 and a half years, so when I first got in the car, I shut the door and I hit his dinging. I don’t know what that ding is about. My wife said, you have to put a seatbelt on.

[00:38:31] Jemal: I said My seatbelt was ankle chains and belly. Uh, yeah, ankle chains and belly irons. I didn’t know nothing about. No seatbelt, no dinging.

[00:38:44] Jemal: So, but once I did get to the house, um, I was familiar with the area because I grew up on the other side of telegraph. So I was very familiar with the area. I took a little bag, my legal papers, I took my bag of papers, I set ’em on the porch. We, the second house off the corner, I walked to the corner. I raised my hands.

[00:39:08] Jemal: I said, you’ve endured, you’ve made it home. And I have family members telling me now, from the day I came home until now, they can’t tell I was in prison because I don’t act like quote unquote a prisoner. And they say, I, I, I don’t know what they’re supposed to look like, but they say, I don’t act like somebody that’s been incarcerated.

[00:39:28] Jemal: I don’t talk like somebody that’s been incarcerated.

[00:39:48] Natalie: All right. I don’t wanna keep you too long cause I wanna make sure you can eat. Um, but.

[00:39:57] Natalie: I’m, I think we’ve, we’ve talked about most of the things I wanted to ask about, so is there anything else that you feel like I didn’t bring up that you’d like to mention?

[00:40:08] Jemal: For me, it, my take on the covid and the way it was handled inside because of the lack of communication from the administration to the counselors and the officers that were in the unit, whatever protocols or procedures came up, there was no consistency.

[00:40:26] Jemal: So again, by the time it got to the officers in the unit, they allowed them to interpret it the way they wanted to interpret, which again, caused confusion.

[00:40:40] Jemal: And some of the staff, they were, it was new to them just as it was to us. So they were going with the flow just as we were. So I didn’t, you know, I didn’t hold anything against them the way they treated us in that regard, but, As far as healthcare, once they did, like I said, I don’t know if they were given any real medication or, or anything of that nature.

[00:41:03] Jemal: I know a few guys that was supposed to come home under the juvenile life bill, but caught covid and passed away, and that was another part of, I, I hate what it, I hate that it happened, but it was another part of the push. That they, uh, gave to Gretchen Whitmer about, look at what’s happening to these guys.

[00:41:30] Jemal: These guys are in there dying, and you’re, you know what I’m saying? You holding them up. Why do that? So you have the technology. So I appreciate the fact that Governor Whitmer did, except the virtual world, as a way to, as an alternative to having a parole process or public hearing process at a standstill because, Even after I left, I’ve heard that one minute they’ll open it up, they’ll have a a few cases and they’ll shut the institution down again.

[00:42:03] Jemal: So that was very confusing. But Covid or not healthcare in Michigan, Detroit healthcare in the Michigan Department of Corrections needs to be overhauled. Mm-hmm.

[00:42:24] Jemal: That would pretty much be it for me.

[00:42:27] Natalie: I’m thinking about it and it’s, you know, there are a lot of older people and, and vulnerable people like in those facilities and you know, with all of the covid things happening, it really kind of struck that home, especially with those, you know, the juvenile lifers that died cuz you know, they could have been home.

[00:42:48] Jemal: Right. And another thing you was talking about, how did they do it? Some people tested, some people had false positives. Mm-hmm. They would test them, they would come back positive, they would put them in the cell with somebody that had covid, and then when they test again, they would test, uh, negative. But now you have to be putting another part of the quarantine because.

[00:43:14] Jemal: The institution exposed you. Mm-hmm. Something so deadly.

[00:43:24] Jemal: They were very unorganized, so communication was bad, and healthcare always sucks.

[00:43:33] Pause: So.

[00:43:37] Natalie: Yeah, it seems like it’s a very stressful situation, even if like you have clear directions and everything and to have everything changing up and having it so unpredictable. Especially cuz you know, they would just tell you your results and sometimes those wouldn’t even be Right.

[00:43:56] Jemal: Right. And then when they find out it’s a false positive, now what they put, they put you in danger and there’s no.

[00:44:04] Jemal: There’s no repercussions for,

[00:44:10] Jemal: there’s no repercussions for their, for what they do when it’s wrong. There’s no repercussions. I, I, that, that’s the best way I can say it. There’s no repercussions for them putting people in harm’s way to catch covid and possibly die. They had no repercussions for that.

[00:44:33] Jemal: And that’s sad. Mm-hmm. That’s sad.

[00:44:39] Natalie: Yeah. You, you hope that, you know, the healthcare system wasn’t great to begin with, but you hope that this kind of shows how poorly it, it really was, and maybe some changes can happen, but you are not like, I’m not sure.

[00:44:56] Jemal: Right. Cause unfortunately, in the years that I spent in there, healthcare got worser and worser.

[00:45:01] Jemal: So

[00:45:05] Jemal: just continued to get worser

[00:45:06] Natalie: and worser. How was it getting worse through the years?

[00:45:14] Jemal: When I first went, you didn’t have to pay a $5 copay to be seen by healthcare in the later years. You know, even though they would still treat you well, they would see you treat you. The only thing they’ll do most often than not, if you have an acre of pain, they’ll tell you to buy the medication out of the store, but you just paid them $5 to tell you to go spend five or $10 in the store for medication.

[00:45:44] Jemal: So what did you pay them? What did you pay them $5 for?

[00:45:47] Natalie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So,

[00:45:52] Jemal: Oh, that’s frustrating. That’s, that’s how from bad to worse.

[00:46:01] Natalie: All right. Well, I’ll let you get to your food, but thank you so much for meeting and talking with me. Absolutely.

[00:46:08] Jemal: Absolutely.

[00:46:09] Natalie: I appreciate, thank you. Of course. All right. I’ll see you later. Bye.

[00:46:14] Jemal: Yep. Take care. All right. Bye bye.