OK County jail hires consultant to help certify health care for detainees
The CEO of the Oklahoma County jail wants the detention center’s health care services certified by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care.
Members of the county’s jail trust recently approved Brandi Garner’s recommendation to spend $48,960 to hire NCCHC Resources Inc. to provide the jail’s administration with consulting and technical assistance to help it get there.
Health-related services inside the jail are provided to detainees both by medical professionals employed by Turn Key Health Clinic and by jailers.
A $7.627 million contract between the jail and Turn Key requires the contractor to work with the jail’s staff to ensure detainees receive reasonable and necessary health, dental, psychiatric, pharmaceutical, and other health care and administrative services.
Oklahoma County experienced its first jail death of 2024 on Feb. 26 when detainee Derek Raymond Strother, 31, was found unresponsive in his cell.
Strother had been locked up since Dec. 18, the day after he reportedly had been involved in a fatal collision in northeast Oklahoma City. He Garner was accused of second
degree murder, driving under the influence of alcohol and causing an accident that resulted in another driver’s death.
More than 40 detainees have died inside the jail since a trust took over its operation on July 1, 2020.
Obtaining certification is not required by state law. However, certification will provide assurances from an outside, third-party that quality health services are being provided to the jail’s population.
Garner told trust members the consultant’s doctors, psychiatrists, and contract and jail operations professionals will review how medical services are being delivered inside the jail by its entire staff and how those could be improved.
“It is no different than auditing ourselves, using a third-party entity,” Garner said. “None of us who work there are medical experts who work there (outside of Turn Key).
“How am I to know for sure what right looks like? I have to trust that the company I am hiring is doing the job, and I think it is just smart to have that third-party oversight.”
OK County jail’s health services haven’t been certified since 2018
Oklahoma County’s jail, Garner said, previously was certified by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care between 2011 and 2018.
Once recertified, the jail will pay the commission about $13,000 annually to review its records each year (the amount is based upon an expected average daily population of 1,300 detainees).
The commission also will make onsite visits at least once every three years to review the jail’s medical care operations.
“We want to look at what we are doing right, what can be improved and what gaps for services might exist”