Deschutes County Jail seeks funds to fill nurse gap

The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office is seeking $295,899 from the county to improve medical care for jail inmates, according to Jail Captain Shane Nelson Wednesday.

“We have a proposal to add nurses so that we will have nursing coverage 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Nelson said.

The announcement comes nearly four months after 31-year-old Edwin Mays Jr. died in a booking cell of the jail from a meth overdose.

The sheriff’s office plans to ask for the additional funding before a budget committee meeting in May. With the money, the department hopes to hire three new full-time nurses in July.

Currently, five nurses work at the jail, but there are four hours each day when no medical staff are on duty.

Jail policy mandates that at least one health-trained officer be on duty in the absence of a medical professional, but Nelson acknowledges inmates could be more likely to share health problems with an actual nurse.

“There’s a possibly an inmate coming in who might have a medical issue that needs attention would be more comfortable to tell somebody in a smock, rather than somebody in a uniform,” Nelson said.

Citing the ongoing state Department of Justice investigation, Nelson said he could not comment on whether a nurse was on duty when Mays died.

Nelson said his department has been considering increasing medical staff for more than a year, but the decision to move forward became more urgent after Mays died.

“Of course, the recent happenings in our jail make us want to be better at what we do,” Nelson said.

Recently released jail footage shows deputies mimicking and laughing at Mays while he was overdosing on the night of Dec 14. The video also shows staff commenting that Mays might need to go to the hospital several hours before he died.

The Department of Justice is now investigating both Mays’ death and the death investigation conducted by the sheriff’s office.

Meanwhile, Nelson said he’s focused on improving the jail and moving forward.

“No, we shouldn’t make fun of people, and it’s never appropriate to be disrespectful or mimic people — and we’ll learn from that,” Nelson said. “However, the folks we work with have a difficult job to do and the cameras are on them 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

He further added,”We hire good people and I trust the people I work with. We will constantly strive to be better at what we do.”

Nelson said if the jail gets additional nurses, it will become one of the few county jails in the state to offer nursing staff 24/7.

A few weeks ago the jail added on a new, part-time, on-call nurse to further help with the medical care of inmates.

Nelson said all health-trained officers and other staff are trained on CPR, defibrillators and other life-saving techniques and devices.