Police have been dispatched to arrest a Washington state woman with an active case of tuberculosis who, for over a year, has repeatedly refused to isolate or get treatment for the infectious disease, health officials said Friday.
The woman, whose name the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department declined to divulge but who was identified in court papers by the initials V.N., was given plenty of chances to isolate or seek treatment.
Judge Philip Sorensen signed the arrest warrant “as a last resort” on Thursday after health officials appealed to him for a 16th time on Feb. 24 to get the woman to comply with his order that she either resume taking her medication or voluntarily isolate herself.
“Respondent’s objections to the order of February 24, 2023 are noted, preserved, and are insufficient to alter the court’s order,” Sorensen wrote. “The Pierce County Jail shall be authorized to transport V.N. to an appropriate designated facility within Pierce County including, but not limited to Department of Corrections facilities.”
Sorensen did not elaborate in his order on why V.N. has refused to comply. But he did warn the arresting officers that they would be transporting “a patient with active tuberculosis” and to take “appropriate precautions.”
The woman’s court-appointed attorney, Sarah Tofflemire, suggested in a filing Wednesday, which was obtained by The Tacoma News Tribune newspaper, that part of the reason the woman has been refusing treatment is because she does not understand what is happening. And Tofflemire requested that a guardian be appointed to help her.
“She has not acknowledged the existence of her own medical condition,” Tofflemire said, noting that when she has taken part in court proceedings “she has spoken out of turn with rapid, disorganized speech.”
“She has primarily focused on how she dislikes papers coming to her home, and not the import of the process in which she finds herself,” Tofflemire stated. “She has repeatedly threatened suicide…
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