There was a lot discuss of “heartburn,” being “in a pickle,” or feeling “bent over a barrel” among the many Santa Barbara County supervisors and jail directors Tuesday as they pinched their collective noses and accredited a $14.5 million contract to safe one other seven months of well being look after inmates on the county’s two jails. This marks the fourth time the supes have prolonged the jail health-care contract initially awarded to the corporate Wellpath, which focuses on offering medical and mental-health care to these held behind bars and brings the whole quantity the county has spent on Wellpath’s providers previously six years to $71 million.
Other than the excessive price concerned, the supervisors expressed a lot vexation at being requested to approve yet one more contract extension — the sixth — with out the advantage of this 12 months’s annual analysis of the corporate’s efficiency. That report was due in February; the supes gained’t see it till October 17.
Wellpath’s contract was the goal of a blistering critique by this 12 months’s Grand Jury, which blamed the corporate’s failure to employees psychiatric professionals on the jail from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. for contributing to among the 5 jail deaths it investigated. Wellpath’s contract doesn’t require 24/7 staffing of mental-health professionals. The Grand Jury beneficial that the contract should be modified. The Grand Jury additionally blamed the loss of life of 1 overtly suicidal inmate on Wellpath’s failure to go alongside info its workers knew to jail personnel. Wellpath cited the legal guidelines governing affected person confidentiality for not passing this information alongside.
Stan Roden, a member of the Grand Jury that wrote these studies and a former Santa Barbara County district lawyer, urged the supervisors to carry off on ratifying the contract extension till Wellpath and the County Sheriff’s Workplace, which oversees jail operations, reply to the Grand Jury studies and proposals. The contract was initially scheduled to have been prolonged in February, Roden famous, and ready one other month, he mentioned, wouldn’t trigger undue heartburn.
Brian Smith, a regional supervisor with Wellpath, mentioned the delay would solely exacerbate most of the issues in terms of recruiting, coaching, retaining, and overseeing expert medical professionals within the jail. This previous 12 months, such staffing issues led the county to penalize Wellpath $27,500 for failing to keep up contractually stipulated staffing ranges.
Wellpath’s Smith took full accountability and the blame for being late with this 12 months’s analysis report, however when pressed as to why, he replied he wanted extra time to enumerate all the corporate’s accomplishments, just like the 11,000 mental-health evaluations of inmates and the 55,000 nursing visits that befell previously 12 months.
Jail directors praised Wellpath as an excellent associate who hung in there with out a contract and went seven months with out fee.
The supervisors — unanimously — weren’t
shopping for any completely satisfied discuss, and Joan Hartmann led the cost demanding that the county’s Division of Public Well being be assigned important oversight authority for future well being care within the county jail. So far, such oversight has been the only area of the Sheriff’s Workplace, so that may be a giant change.
Since 2022, there have been eight deaths within the county jail system, lots of which concerned inmates with persistent psychological well being and substance abuse points. Supervisor Das Williams blamed Wellpath staffing shortages for lengthy delays in inmate consumption processing, which in flip has worsened an time beyond regulation spending disaster that’s lengthy plagued county jail operations. This previous 12 months, Williams mentioned, jail time beyond regulation prices hit nearly $17 million.
