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| Ga. Jail's Medical Care Accredited |
| By Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
| Published: 07/14/2003 |
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DeKalb Co. Sheriff Thomas Brown said Tuesday his jail's much criticized medical program had won accreditation from a national agency. Brown said the accreditation by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care reflected efforts by his department and private contractor Correctional Medical Services 'in removing the gray cloud that has existed over the jail's medical unit.' The sheriff said he hoped the accreditation would help persuade Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller to release the jail's medical program from court oversight. Fuller is holding the county in contempt of court for not complying with the terms of a 2-year-old agreement that settled a lawsuit by inmates. Brown cited the pending accreditation in a May 1 hearing in which he unsuccessfully urged the judge to lift the contempt finding. In a May 13 order, the judge said he agreed with his court-appointed monitor, Dr. Robert Greifinger, that jail medical care had improved but had not yet complied with the court order. Greifinger testified that mental health care was a problem. He said two recent suicides at the jail might have been prevented. A representative of the accrediting agency testified at the hearing that such incidents were not necessarily grounds for denying accreditation if authorities took action to prevent recurrences. The jail contractor changed procedures after one suicide to make it harder to remove an inmate from a suicide watch. After an investigation into the other case, Brown demoted two sergeants to the rank of deputy sheriff and suspended a third sergeant for two days without pay. Sheriff's Department records reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show an internal investigation concluded that two sergeants failed to seek a mental health evaluation of inmate Tony Louis after a jail officer told them Louis had tied strips of a sheet around a light fixture in his cell March 27. The third sergeant was disciplined for failing to supervise Louis' floor that evening. On April 1, Louis hanged himself with a sheet tied to a light fixture. |
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