O.C. Grand Jury lauds county's jail nurses but criticizes the support
As staffs and budgets shrink, inmate populations have soared, creating an environment in which 'good nurses are burning out or quitting, and where complaints . . . go unheeded,' report says.
Nurses working at Orange County sheriff's jails are hobbled in their efforts to provide excellent medical care to inmates by significant staffing shortages, insufficient training, equipment problems and communication breakdowns, according to a grand jury report released Thursday.
The grand jury review, titled "Man Down!! Will He Get Up?," was prompted by published reports about inmate deaths that raised questions about medical care at the jails, which is provided by nurses and other employees from the county's Health Care Agency.
Overall, nurses are highly professional, competent and dedicated to providing high-quality medical care at the sheriff's five jails, the grand jury summarized. But staffs and the budget have been shrinking while the inmate populations have soared, creating an environment in which "good nurses are burning out or quitting, and where complaints about nursing conditions seemingly go unheeded," the grand jury concluded.
The findings were released on the heels of a damning report by a separate grand jury that found the Sheriff's Department's command structure suffered a complete breakdown in the investigation into the beating death of an inmate at Theo Lacy Jail in Orange. At least two other inmate deaths are under investigation by the district attorney's office, including one that may have followed an attack on a nurse.
The report on medical care suggests that the county is having a hard time finding and keeping qualified nurses partly because of the obvious dangers of the job, and because background checks take too long.
Capt. Davis Nighswonger, commander of Professional Standards Division, countered that the background checks are essential to security because they keep people with "questionable pasts" or criminal records from contact with inmates or sensitive information.
The checks are completed in a timely manner, Nighswonger said, usually within six weeks. "Many of the nurse applicants who drop out" because of the background checks, he said in a prepared statement, "do so because their investigations reveal character or behavioral flaws, past criminal conduct, drug use, poor prior work performance or a host of other problems."
The grand jury also recommended that with staffing of senior nurses cut in half since 2002 -- from 16 to eight, with only seven of those jobs filled -- at least eight more senior nurses should be added to the jails. A nursing manager should also be hired to oversee day-to-day operations, the panel found, to help eliminate the poor communication between administrators and nurses, and to free senior nurses to focus on medical care.
Nick Berardino, general manager of the Orange County Employees Assn., which represents the nurses, said Thursday that it was refreshing to have the grand jury confirm "everything that we've been saying for years regarding the situation at the jails."
Berardino said a committee of nurses, supervisors, union representatives and human resources officials have been meeting to address and improve critical issues. But the process needs to be accelerated at all levels, he said.
"We're on the right path, but there's still a tremendous amount of work to be done."
christine.hanley@latimes.com
