News from "The State", Richland County SC
Monday, Jan. 05, 2009
Jail earns accreditation for mental health services (summary below) By DAWN HINSHAW - dhinshaw@thestate.com
Inmates at the Richland County jail are evaluated for needed mental health services when they arrive. And after they serve their time, psychiatric patients continue to be monitored in hopes they’ll improve. Those are among new standards that have earned the jail accreditation by the country’s leading advocates of jail health care.
That represents a turnaround for the county-run institution where, just three years ago, three mentally ill inmates died. Now, 200 or more people each month get treatment for problems ranging from substance abuse to schizophrenia — people who previously fell through the cracks, officials say.
In addition to bolstering mental health services, jail standards call for inmates to be screened for health problems within two weeks of their incarceration. In the past three years, the number of full-time medical staff has more than doubled, to 34, Myers said. The staff was at 16 in March of 2006, when Correct Care Solutions took over the jail’s health care management, officials said. At that time, the county had just weathered an onslaught of bad publicity and expensive legal settlements involving three mentally ill inmates who died while in custody. Two men hanged themselves. A third died from complications from hypothermia.
County Council fired the health contractor it had at the time, Prison Health Services, and struck a contract with the new, more expensive health care provider. Councilman Greg Pearce, a retired state hospital administrator, said it’s money well spent. “This company has worked with our local providers to strengthen the psychiatric component,” Pearce said. “Obviously, being accredited, it’s worked out.”
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