By DAVE DOWNEY ddowney@californian.com | Posted: Saturday, June 18, 2011 9:00 pm
Declaring that Riverside County is providing substandard medical care for inmates at the county's five jails and youth offenders held at five juvenile halls, a citizens panel Friday urged officials to boost funding for health services in the institutions.
The Riverside County civil grand jury, a panel that studies government policies and makes suggestions for improving them, also urged county officials to transfer control of jail and juvenile hall medical care from the Riverside County Regional Medical Center to the Sheriff's and Probation departments, respectively.
The Board of Supervisors agreed last week to boost funding for health services in the correctional system to fiscal 2009-10 levels in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
However, the board left control of the program in the hands of the hospital director.
Only the Riverside jail provides around-the-clock medical care for inmates. A doctor is available to see sick prisoners only half the time in the French Valley, Banning and Indio jails, and no one is available at the Blythe jail.
The county had considered eliminating all medical care at French Valley and Indio, but decided not to. The funding boost could restore care at Blythe and increase the hours of medical care at the other jails.
As for the juvenile halls, the one in Southwest County has to transport all minors requiring medical attention to either the Riverside Juvenile Hall or the Riverside County Regional Medical Center in Moreno Valley, the jury said.
The report said the Southwest facility has a backlog of 22 physical examinations. Such exams are supposed to be conducted within four days of someone being incarcerated, the jury said, but some inmates are waiting as long as six weeks.
Supervisor Jeff Stone of Temecula said supervisors are committed to improving health care in the jails and juvenile halls.
"We recognize that we have a problem," Stone said by telephone Friday.
At the same time, Stone said he disagrees with the grand jury's call for making the sheriff and probation chief responsible for inmate health care.
"You need to have the professionals who have the professional background and experience of delivering health services responsible for that," Stone said. "All they needed was the financial resources to make that happen."
Sheriff Stan Sniff, who in recent months lobbied supervisors to boost spending for medical staffing in the jails and warned that the county was vulnerable to a lawsuit, called the report an objective assessment of conditions. But he said the Board of Supervisors' commitment to an increased level of funding for fiscal 2011-12 is addressing the problem.
"We greatly appreciated the leadership efforts of Supervisors Marion Ashley and Jeff Stone this past month in helping to get this rapidly worsening problem resolved in our jails," Sniff said in a statement. "The last thing we need is for the federal courts to intervene and use a blank check of county taxpayer dollars to fix this local problem. After last Monday's budget hearing, the county is getting these issues finally resolved, even before this second grand jury report was issued."
Sniff said the Sheriff's Department will issue a formal response to the jury's findings later.
The grand jury's call for shifting responsibility for correctional health services to law enforcement reflects Sniff's call for such a change in late March. The jury noted that health care used to be provided under the direction of the sheriff and probation chief until that authority was transferred to the hospital in the mid-1990s.
According to the report, 158 registered nurses, 11 doctors and one physician assistant were available to meet inmates' needs in 2007. But as of January, the report states, the staffing had declined to 47 nurses and three physicians.
Call staff writer Dave Downey at 951-676-4315, ext. 2623.
Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/swcounty/article_6e560919-d1b0-50b3-aac4-17665d3040d7.html#ixzz1QDFd1t9Q
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