01302004 - News Article - Three bid to treat ill county inmates - LAKE COUNTY: Current provider at jail asks for most money for medical services - ROBERT CANTRELL

Three bid to treat ill county inmates
LAKE COUNTY: Current provider at jail asks for most money for medical services
NWI Times
Jan 30, 2004
nwitimes.com/news/state-and-regional/three-bid-to-treat-ill-county-inmates/article_61bd4232-b90a-5322-bfed-409266aa4df2.html
CROWN POINT -- Lake County Sheriff Rogelio "Roy" Dominguez said this week he is prepared to recommend who should receive a lucrative contract to provide health care services to county jail inmates.

Edgewater Systems for Balanced Living in Gary bid about $1.43 million, Prison Health Services, of Nashville, Tenn., bid just under $1.69 million and Southlake Center for Mental Health in Merrillville bid just over $1.69 million to serve the jail for a year.

Southlake, which has tended to inmates' medical needs for more than two decades, received $1.6 million last year.

Dominguez said the accounting firm of KPMG and a group of advisers, including Lake County Clerk Thomas Philpot, will review the bids and give county commissioners their recommendation in two to four weeks.

Michael Higgins, county police spokesman, said the county jail holds about 850 inmates on an average day. Many need the care of a doctor or dentist during the weeks or months they are incarcerated while awaiting trial.

Health care in the county jail has been a public issue since 1974, when a diabetic inmate, Randy Jensen, was denied his insulin until he began to slip into a coma.

Jensen and other inmates sued the county and a federal judge took control of the jail and mandated improvements, including a 57-bed medical facility inside the jail that cost county taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

The court installed Southlake Center for Mental Health in 1982 to ensure inmates continued to have ready access to medical care. Southlake has continued as the provider even after the federal court returned control of the jail to the sheriff and commissioners in 1997.

County commissioners considered putting the health care contract up for bid in 2002. Robert Cantrell, former East Chicago Republican chairman and political adviser to many leading Democratic figures, lobbied at that time to earmark part of the contract for drug counseling by Addiction and Family Care, a service owned by Nancy Fromm.

Fromm currently provides substance abuse counseling for inmates in the sheriff's work-release center, a minimum security facility in Crown Point. Her firm also treats hundreds of drunken drivers referred by state and municipal judges.

Although Fromm expressed interested in the county jail contract last year, she didn't bid on it, the sheriff said.

Edgewater, formerly known as the Gary Community Mental Health Center, also offers medical services for many offenders referred by the courts. Prison Health Services currently has contracts with more than 400 correctional facilities around the country.