From Susan Tipograph

Greetings. Since I am technologically challenged, could you please
distribute this widely - to all appropriate list-serves, etc. Thanks.

Many/most of you know/know of Robert Seth Hayes, a former Black Panther
Party member who has been incarcerated in New York State for 35 years.
Seth has diabetes and hepatitis C and, as many of you know, he has
received shockingly poor medical care. Recently, his diabetes has been
out of control and for the last 2 months has had an infection on his toe
which has gone untreated. Despite the fact that his blood sugars have
been often sky-high, in the 8 years that he has been diagnosed with
diabetes, he has never seen an endocrinologist or diabetes specialist.

I have just written a letter to Brian Fischer, Commissioner of the NYS
Department of Correctional Services (Building 2, 1220 Washington Avenue,
Albany, NY 12226) and other DOCS officials demanding in summary that a)
his toe infection get dealth with immediately, and b) he is seen and his
care supervised by an outside diabestes specialist (if they cannot do it
at Wende or the Buffalo area, he should be transferred to a facility
where that can happen). I have also sent that letter with a cover letter
asking for help to a number of NYS legislators who have previously
proven helpful or serve of committees where they should - they have
included - Senate - Thomas Duane, Eric Adams - both of the Committee on Corrections Assembly - Jeffrion Aubry - Chair, Committee on Corrections, Keith L.T. Wright (Committee on Corrections, Richard N. Gottfried (Chair, Committee on Health) (all of their contact information can be found on the websites of the Senate and Assembly).

Starting February 26, 2008, please write letters to Brian Fischer to
insure that Seth get the care that he requires. Also, please contact the
legislators that I mentioned (along with any others that you think could
or should be helpful) and request that they take action to insure that
Seth gets the care that he needs and requires. If any of you have
personal or professional relationships with these legislators, please
impress upon them the urgency of this request. Please pass this request
along as widely as possible.

If there are other political, community and religious leaders or any others who could be helpful, please reach out to them. I am on my own and my resources are limited so anything that you can do, please do so. If you can, send me a copy of any of your correspondence so that I can keep it in my records and send it along to Seth. In my experience, individual letters, particularly those from people of influence, rather than form letters or petitions, make the most difference.

Thanks so much.

Susan Tipograph, 350 Broadway, Suite
700, New York, NY 10013.