The Prison Doctor
‘Extraordinary’ Daily Mail As seen on BBC Breakfast Horrifying, heartbreaking and eye-opening, these are the stories, the patients and the cases that have characterised a career spent being a doctor behind bars. Violence. Drugs. Suicide. Welcome to the world of a Prison Doctor. Dr Amanda Brown has treated inmates in the UK’s most infamous prisons – first in young offenders’ institutions, then at the notorious Wormwood Scrubs and finally at Europe’s largest women-only prison in Europe, Bronzefield. From miraculous pregnancies to dirty protests, and from violent attacks on prisoners to heartbreaking acts of self-harm, she has witnessed it all. In this eye-opening, inspirational memoir, Amanda reveals the stories, the patients and the cases that have shaped a career helping those most of us would rather forget. Despite their crimes, she is still their doctor.
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DR AMANDA BROWN is a GP at the largest women-only prison in Europe, Bronzefield. She was a regular NHS GP for a number of years, until she gave up her practice to move into the prison service. She worked at a teenage detention centre, before moving on to Wormwood Scrubs and then finally to Bronzefield where she continues to practice to this day. The Prison Doctor is her first book.
THE PRISON DOCTOR
DR AMANDA BROWN
ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Dr. Amanda Brown and Ruth Kelly 2019
Dr Amanda Brown and Ruth Kelly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008311452
‘The mind is its own place and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.’
– JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
HMP Bronzefield
I arrived to shouting and screaming. Prison officers were sprinting across the corridor and up the metal stairs.
‘What’s happening?’ I shouted, thinking a fight must have broken out.
I’ve seen and heard a lot during my fifteen years as a prison doctor, but the reply shocked me.
‘Someone’s having a baby!’ one of the officers yelled, repeating the news into his radio. He called for back-up, an ambulance, nurses, for all medical staff to come to House Block One.
‘Oh bloody hell!’
I followed the stampede. We sounded like a small army trampling up the metal stairs.
The deep stench of overcooked vegetables from lunch lingered in the air, green and ripe, sweet and rotten, mixed with sweat and cheap soap.
The prisoners heard us coming, thumping their fists on their cell doors. Metal thunder, filling the air.
Half a dozen officers were already crowded outside the entrance to the tiny cell at the end.
‘Coming through!’ I said, squeezing past them.
A shaft of light poured through the small barred window. Hiding in the shadows of the corner was a tiny young woman, standing and shaking. Her nightie was soaked in blood from the waist down. The walls were splattered too; violent red sprays, like protest graffiti.
She looked completely shell-shocked. In that moment, she didn’t know where or who she was. Her wiry black hair was drenched in sweat and glued across her face.
But where was the baby?
I tried to appear calm, stepping closer, trying to reassure her.
‘Hi, sweetheart, you’re going to be okay.’
Who knew if that were true? I suspected the prisoner was a heroin addict currently on methadone. The majority of prisoners on House Block One had a history of substance misuse.
The banging of the doors grew louder. Shouting and swearing, the air full of heat and sound and pressure. When the prison was like that it felt as if a spark could blow the place sky high.
The woman started screaming.
‘Get it out of me! Get it out of me!’
She must have meant her placenta because there, partially hidden by the bed, lying in a pool of blood on the cold prison floor, was a tiny baby girl.
I looked around, trying to see something I could use to wrap her up. The umbilical cord was torn, presumably ripped apart by her mother. The baby was so small I suspected she was a good few weeks premature. But was she alive? Was this poor, poor girl ali—
To my overwhelming relief she started to cry.
‘Has anyone got any clean towels?’ I asked.
‘Here you go, Doc.’ Becky, the prison officer, handed me the only clean thing she had to hand – a blue bed sheet.
I scooped her up into my arms, wrapped the prison sheets around her and held her close, desperately trying to warm up her fragile body. What a way to come into the world. She nestled into my chest and her crying settled a little.
