sick call

English

Noun

sick call (plural sick calls)

1. (US, military) A daily lineup of military personnel requiring medical attention.
2. (prison) The opportunity that allows prisoners to request medical attention.
   • 1940, ‎Wayne Lyman Morse, The Attorney General's Survey of Release Procedures:

     Ten prisons have sick call twice a day and three handle such complaints three times a day .

   • 1985 December 7, Christine Guilfoy, Bailus Walker, “Quarantine Is No Way To Fight AIDS”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 21, page 9:

     In the health care system in corrections, periodically we will find people who will want to go to sick call, and correctional officers will say, "You just want to goof off, you don't need medical care." In the correctional setting we need that kind of [serological] information so that this person can go to sick call without having a confrontation with the local officer.