NICK KOVESHNIKOV, DEAN RHODES AND ALAN CHOATE
Medical bills for inmates in Clallam and Jefferson county jails are sickening the officials who must pay the cost for nurses, doctors and — in one prisoner’s case — chemotherapy and stem-cell transplants.
In addition, Clallam County commissioners have a headache because the cities its jail serves are balking at the increasing expense.
Both counties’ maladies are worsened by the state’s refusal to pay Medicaid for indigent inmates.
And as spending rises like a fever, no fast-acting remedies can be found in the counties’ budgets.
Clallam County commissioners in June appropriated an extra $50,000 for inmate medical care outside the jail.
The additional money was on top of the $125,000 Clallam expects to pay Olympic Medical Home Health this year for inside-the-jail daily care.
Daily care covers a range of common illnesses, injuries, and diabetic, maternity and post-operative care by the visiting nurses of Olympic Medical Center.
A $10 co-pay inmates must shell out from their own money discourages malingering, says Clallam County Administrator Dan Engelbertson.
Jefferson County Jail inmates in 2004 received about $67,000 worth of medical services.
Those services included emergency room visits and hospitalizations at Jefferson Healthcare hospital, according to the county auditor’s office.
By June 23 of this year, Jefferson County already had spent more than $92,000, largely due to inmates with serious injuries.
