An Albanian man’s pain grew so unbearable, he said, that he pulled out his own tooth as he languished for months in a New Mexico immigration detention centre. A Honduran mother of two said she was hospitalised for a heart problem after she was denied blood pressure medication while held in Florida. A Venezuelan man said his leg grew purple and swollen from flesh-eating bacteria when staff at a Vermont facility did not take him to a scheduled doctor’s appointment.

Hundreds of detainees across at least 33 states allege in federal lawsuits that immigration detention facilities are failing to provide adequate medical care, an investigation by KFF Health News and The Associated Press found.

Detainees say they did not receive medication on time — or at all — for conditions including high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, epilepsy, Parkinson’s and HIV. Requests for help went unanswered for weeks. Blood sugar levels rose. Infections festered. Cancers remained untreated. Detainees collapsed and had seizures.