Fatalities, sex scandal prompt several inquiries
By HECTOR CASTRO
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
KING COUNTY, Wash. — This has been a deadly year for inmates of the King County Jail, which on Tuesday reported the seventh death of someone in its care.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Maj. William Hayes, spokesman for the Department of Adult and Juvenile Services. “We don’t want this any more than anybody else does. It’s traumatic for everybody.”
The 55-year-old woman died Monday. Correction officers found her unconscious in her cell about 6:20 p.m., after inmates notified them that she was having medical problems. The cause of death did not appear to be suicide or homicide, Hayes said.
Sexual misconduct by jail staff and inmate deaths have put county corrections under a spotlight, with reviews from public and private agencies.
One pending report will come from the U.S. Department of Justice, which sent a team of investigators last year to examine staff sexual misconduct, inmate suicides and the spread of infectious diseases at the main jail, including bacterial infections resistant to most antibiotics.
And in November, the county ombudsman’s office examined medical issues at the jail, issuing a report that included criticisms of the medical care from both inmates and some nurses.
“We are concerned that identified deficiencies put patient health and safety at risk, and increase King County’s potential legal liability,” Ombudsman Amy Calderwood wrote in the Nov. 29 report.
As a result of that report, the King County Council asked the Auditor’s Office to examine medical services at the jail, particularly the pharmacies and nurse staffing.
The auditor’s report was presented Tuesday to a council committee. It proved a relief to officials with Jail Health Services, because it found that statistically, jail medical staff are actually less likely to commit a medical error than the medical community at large.
The ombudsman’s report noted 192 complaints from 2004 through the end of 2006 alleging medication errors, including administering incorrect medicine to inmates and failing to provide outside prescriptions for inmates who needed them. But the auditor’s report found that those errors rarely put inmates at any risk.
Slightly more than 35 percent of the county’s roughly 2,500 in 2006 required medication. Auditors estimated that 1.9 percent of those inmates had an error with their medication. That’s far less than the 5.1 percent average found in hospitals nationwide, the report states.
The ombudsman’s earlier report also included comments from nurses who complained about chronic understaffing and how it hindered their ability to care for inmates. But the auditors reported there was no real way to evaluate whether staffing was adequate because Jail Health Services has no means of measuring productivity and workload.
Some of that is likely to change, officials said, when an electronic health record system goes online next year.
When County Councilman Larry Gossett asked how the jail compared with others, Bette Pine, director of Jail Health Services, said King County typically has a relatively low number of inmate deaths for the size of its population, coming in second lowest among large county jails.
There is an average of five deaths a year, Hayes said, though there have been years with far fewer deaths. There were only three from 2000 to 2002, he said.
But this year, inmate deaths have climbed.
They have included one man who died in a motorcycle accident while on work release. The other six deaths occurred while the inmates were in jail. They included a teenager who died at the Youth Services Center after suffering a lack of oxygen to his brain following a seizure and a 28-year-old man who suffered a seizure and died from multiple organ failure after he was booked into jail. Inquests have been ordered into both deaths.
In August, a 34-year-old man died from a drug-resistant staph infection. No inquest has been ordered in his death.
The ombudsman’s office on its own has begun reviewing the death of an inmate who died in July from acute peritonitis. Before his death, the 47-year-old man had complained of pain so severe, a corrections officer found him on the morning of July 18 clutching his abdomen and writhing in pain on his bunk.
When the officer asked the inmate what was wrong, he replied, “I think my liver exploded,” according to a report on the inmate’s death.
The inmate was examined by two nurses at different times and eventually transferred to the medical unit. The next morning, still having not been seen by a doctor, the inmate tried to stand in order to receive medication, but he staggered. Other inmates in the medical ward had to help him back to his bunk.
Two hours later, officers found the man unconscious. They tried to revive him but could not.
An autopsy later revealed the peritonitis, possibly from an untreated ulcer.
An inquest has been ordered in his death.
Copyright 2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer