By C1 Staff
SAFFORD, Ariz. — A group of correctional health professionals meet quarterly to ensure they are up to date with accepted health practices.
Six of Arizona’s 15 counties had representatives at the meeting inside the Graham County General Services Building to hear an annual auditing report and listen to two guest speakers, reports the Eastern Arizona Courier.
John Ekman spoke about the psychiatric drug Seroquel, and Dr. Jason Branch, the head of the ER at Mt. Graham Regional Medical Center, spoke about appropriate actions to take when viewing drug and alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
The counties at the meeting are all jointly insured under the Arizona Counties Insurance Pool.
Becky Payne, a RN and health services administrator for Yavapai County Jail, chairs the group and helped come up with a set of standards used as an audit tool the group uses to show the Ariz. Department of Health Services.
“The jail medical units are providing the medical care like any other hospital or nursing home or hospice in the state,” Payne said. “It’s good medical care … for a lot of our [patients] the jail is their first exposure to medicine, so we diagnose a ton of high blood pressure, diabetes; we’ve diagnosed tumors and cancers and melanomas. It’s because they don’t have insurance or they don’t know when they should seek medical care.”
Payne also added that the county serves as the default detox centers for the communities.
The jail’s health staff also frequently end up as case managers for inmates with drug and alcohol issues, not only helping them to detox but continuing to help with rehabilitation, according to Graham Coutny Jail charge nurse Robert Schermer.
“We get people who come in terrible and [we] get them healthy ... We’re very successful at getting people off the drugs; whether or not they stay off is their choice.”