Reza Eshghabadi, 52, claims he hasn’t been able to eat much more than soup and mashed potatoes for the past 14 months, suffering from poor health and losing 16 pounds. He speaks very little English.
Eshghabadi says his missing teeth have also made it even more difficult to communicate with jail staff.
The Kamloops Daily News reported that the provincial government insists dentures aren’t medically necessary and it has no obligation to provide them.
Eshghabadi has been in a provincial jail in British Columbia, on Canada’s Pacific Coast, since he was sentenced for importing opium in November 2009. He was convicted along with his wife and sentenced to almost two years in jail.
Eshghabadi claims in court documents that he arrived at the Fraser Regional Correctional Center with 10 teeth, which held his dentures in place. Shortly after his arrival, he saw a jail dentist, complaining that his dentures were loose.
During his first appointment, he was put under anesthetic and awoke to find half of his remaining teeth were removed, he alleges. A few days later, he had a second appointment and was again put under anesthetic. When he awoke, he says the rest of his teeth were gone.
“At no time was it made clear to me that Dr. (James) Luk intended to remove my remaining 10 teeth,” Eshghabadi said in his affidavit, which was written with the help of a translator.
“There was no translator present. I did not consent to these two dental procedures. If I had been fully informed that Dr. Luk intended to remove my 10 remaining teeth and that [the province] would not provide me with replacement dentures, I would never have undergone the surgery.”
Eshghabadi’s old dentures didn’t fit after his teeth were removed, leaving him unable to chew food, he says.
Medical records filed with the court indicate Eshghabadi’s dentist recommended he be fitted for new dentures, at a cost of about $1,000, but numerous requests and appeals for funding were denied.
Eshghabadi argued in those applications that he was unable to consume a proper diet, and jail officials were unwilling to offer him anything more than mashed potatoes, milk, soup and liquid dietary supplements, even after he was diagnosed with diabetes. He was told by corrections officials to “mash” his food, but he said he couldn’t do that with only his gums.
A letter to Eshghabadi from a corrections inspector in April 2010 cited an internal policy that missing or extracted teeth won’t be replaced unless not doing so would be “injurious to the well-being or life of the inmate.” In this case, the inspector wrote, denying Eshghabadi’s request for dentures wouldn’t adversely impact the man’s health.
Eshghabadi has filed an application for judicial review of his case, asking the court to reverse the jail’s decision denying him dentures.
