This story was told by a person incarcerated at Chowchilla.
Caller: So my anxiety is – is up – is up real high. We have a psych that we can ask to be seen, but he don’t come right away, so by the time that he come – he come to see, you’ve either forgot what you – what you was having your anxieties about.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: So things like that, yeah, yeah, I’m nervous.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: So and we – we used to have the helpers, like a CNA used to come and help the ladies that – who can’t do as good as other ladies. We don’t even have that no more. So we don’t have the little helpers like we used to have, so we have to fend for ourselves.
UCI: Mm-hmm. And – and this has started, you guys don’t have helpers anymore ever since COVID started?
Caller: Yeah, well – well, off and on, we’ll have a helper ever now and then, but we used to have helpers every day, 24/7.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: So since the pandemic start – started, sometimes we have helpers and sometimes we don’t. My friends say most of the time we don’t.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: But every now and then, we’ll have – we’ll have a helper because some of us need those – we need those helpers.
UCI: Yeah. I’m so sorry to hear that.
Caller: Yeah, we need help. Not only me, you know? It’s – it’s not – it’s not nothing personal, I don’t think because they do – they do all of us like that.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: Mm-hmm. They do some worse than others, though. You know, like if you need help, you just show up, so you just got to try to, you know, do the best you can.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: Yeah, so that’s my story.
