By John Kennett
Our Midland
MIDLAND COUNTY, Mich. — Should Midland County spend an extra $55,000 on nursing care for the jail? That was the question debated at last week’s Administration and Operations Committee meeting.
The committee agreed to move to the full board Midland County Sheriff Stephenson’s request for People To People Network (PPN) to handle nursing services at the jail. But, the two-year agreement wasn’t without some concerns and on-going discussion. The process began last September when the county received five bids for nursing care.
“(County Procurement and Contracts Administrator Denise Mason) and I went through the bids and I eliminated two of them right away, because they only included nursing and we asked for doctor and nursing in one contract,” said Stephenson. “The other one was a place out of Peoria, Ill. It is an out of state place and the price was so low that they’re missing something.” Remaining were two Midland-based companies: ATC Healthcare and PPN.
“ATC started in January,” said Stephenson. “It is a large corporation, but the lady that owns (the local franchise) bought it in January. They don’t have any other jails at this point. But, they do have some nurses with experience in prison versus a jail, which can be quite a bit different. I believe it is a good company and will be a good company, but it is only a year old.” PPN has provided medical services at the jail for the last 14 years and earned the respect of Stephenson, who was jail manager from 2007-2012.
“It came down to: ‘What are we used to? What works for us?’” he said. “PPN has kept us out of litigation and has been known to come in at night, without charging, to evaluate inmates. They are familiar with the other jurisdictions we house inmates for: U.S. Marshals, Genesee County and (Michigan Department of Corrections). Each one of those, there is a little bit different way they like their medical billed to them. PPN is a smaller, local company. The size of their company makes it so they have a lot of skin in the game.”
Full story: Nursing care at jail brings split on county committee