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| Sheriff seeks to lower jail medical costs |
| By The Journal Gazette |
| Published: 09/18/2006 |
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ALLEN COUNTY, IN - Ten years ago, Allen County spent about $300,000 a year to pay for the health care needs of the inmates at the Allen County Jail. Since then, Sheriff Jim Herman has watched helplessly as those costs have ballooned to an estimated $1 million for 2006. Less than four months before leaving office, Herman has taken his concerns about health care costs to the Allen County Council to suggest that his successor and the council begin looking for ways to control costs and improve care for inmates. The jail has a full-time nursing staff for routine inmate health care needs and contracts with a doctor to come to the jail each day to see inmates who require a physician. Inmates who need emergency care must be taken by jail staff to a hospital emergency room, and Herman said there are often as many as three inmates hospitalized at the same time. A jail staff member must remain at the hospital with inmates until they are released. Jail inmates tend to be among the most high-risk for significant long-term health problems, Herman said. Few have health insurance, and many struggle with drug and alcohol problems that leave them vulnerable to illness. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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