Riverside County to halt decline in jail health care

By DAVE DOWNEY ddowney@californian.com | Posted: Thursday, June 16, 2011 6:46 pm

Despite a continuing drop in revenue, Riverside County officials plan to partially reverse a three-year decline in the level of health care inmates receive at the five county jails.

Pressed by state and grand jury reviews critical of the county, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors this week rejected additional cuts in jail health care and said it intends to upgrade the program.

That means the county will continue to staff the 1,111-bed Southwest Detention Center in French Valley 12 hours a day with doctors and psychiatrists who can address medical and mental health issues that arise.

Under cuts proposed earlier, all inmates with such problems would have been taken to a downtown Riverside jail if they needed care.

It also means prisoners at the Indio jail will continue to be treated on-site.

And it means health care might be restored at the Blythe jail. Douglas Bagley, chief executive officer for the Riverside County Regional Medical Center, said that will depend on what law enforcement officials decide is the best way to spend the additional money the board is expected to make available next year.

The new fiscal year begins July 1.

"We're going to sit down with the sheriff and the Probation Department, and review with them what their priorities are," Bagley said.

County spokesman Ray Smith said the county will need to boost funding by $5.5 million to return jail health services to the level they were in fiscal 2009-10.

During the current year, the county budgeted close to $20 million for those services ---- $13.5 million for medical care and $5.9 million for mental health care, Smith said.

"We're definitely not going to cut," said Supervisor Marion Ashley. "We can't cut. It's just not getting the job done."

Ashley said the board is looking to improve care, saying supervisors made a mistake a year ago when they cut funding.

"We have to learn from that mistake," he said. "This is a real serious issue. And the grand jury report underscored that."

In May, the Riverside County grand jury ---- a panel of residents that reviews local government practices and makes suggestions for improvement ---- found jail mental health care to be unacceptable.

The panel said newly arriving inmates often go weeks without being assessed for mental health problems, when they should be screened within 24 hours. The jury said prisoners often go without medication and counseling.

In January, the California Corrections Standards Authority, which advises the state on jail conditions, visited Riverside County and reached similar conclusions.

The authority determined that both mental health and medical care were inadequate. It noted that a lack of medical staff has forced the jails to ship many inmates to the county medical center in Moreno Valley for treatment.

In response to the state review, Sheriff Stan Sniff has repeatedly warned that the county is vulnerable to a lawsuit because of conditions. He recently hired a consultant to evaluate the care inmates receive and determine what is necessary to bring it up to state standards.

The county has five jails. They are in French Valley, Riverside, Indio, Banning and Blythe and have a combined capacity of 3,902 beds.

Because of a string of budget cuts that began in fiscal 2007-08, there are no services at Blythe. Doctors are available only half the time ---- 12 hours a day ---- at three other jails.

Only the Robert Presley Detention Center in downtown Riverside provides around-the-clock coverage.

"Ideally, the more hours of coverage we have at all the facilities, the better," Bagley said. "But these are far from ideal times."

Annual county tax revenue has declined from a peak of $785 million in fiscal 2006-07 to $592 million this year, and is projected to come in at $582 million in fiscal 2011-12.

Bagley said reduced hours are troublesome because if inmates get sick when no doctors are on hand, they often must wait longer to be treated.

Reduced coverage also is troublesome for the Sheriff's Department, he said, because it has to pull deputies away from patrols to transport prisoners to the county hospital.

Worse, Ashley said, sending deputies to the hospital triggers the need for them to work overtime, offsetting savings from the doctor staffing cuts.

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/swcounty/article_449b53ef-4148-5085-97f2-9ec675655b5d.html