Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
Prisoners with mental-health problems still face critical delays in receiving medication at the Harris County Jail, but improvements have been made since a lawsuit was filed last year, a watchdog agency for the disabled said Friday.
"We are working with the jail, and we are seeing some improvement," said Sarah Guidry, East Texas regional managing attorney for Advocacy Inc.
Guidry heads a five-member inspection team from Advocacy, which is authorized by Congress to enforce federal laws ensuring proper health care for the mentally and physically disabled in Texas.
Advocacy officials signed an agreement with Harris County on March 13 that set the ground rules for jail inspections and ended a lawsuit the organization filed against the county in September, said George Nachtigall, deputy trial division chief in the County Attorney's Office.
Inspections permitted
Advocacy sued after jail officials rebuffed its efforts to inspect the jail in response to 32 complaints of improper mental-health care for disabled prisoners. Nachtigall said this week that jail officials initially denied Advocacy's requests for unconditional inspections out of concern about security and safety.
He said Advocacy inspectors now can appear at the jail at any reasonable time without prior notification.
"We've been going in unannounced and walk around to mental-health units," said Advocacy attorney Beth Mitchell.
Guidry supervises three jail inspectors and a manager, who have been responding to inmate complaints.
"Between the time we filed the lawsuit and now, there seems to be a big improvement in people accessing medications in a timely manner," Guidry said.
But the group still receives complaints each week, she said. The biggest problem is the lag time between when mentally ill patients on medication enter the jail and when they begin receiving their medication from the jail medical staff, Guidry said.
Records show that, even though a judge ordered that one prisoner be given his medication, he did not receive it for several weeks, Guidry said.
An assessment by the Harris County Jail Diversion Task Force, composed of health-service providers, found that the length of time in jail doubled for mentally ill prisoners who did not receive their medication, Guidry said.
"We still have people coming back from the state hospital with medication in hand and they are not getting their medication for a few days," Guidry said.
Inspectors will try to find the reasons for those delays, she said.
Guidry said inspectors also are seeking details about the Nov. 22 death of mentally disabled prisoner Travis Laron McKinney, 21. His family raised concerns that he may not have received medication to control seizures.
