During a special meeting to discuss jail health care, Santa Barbara County residents and the Board of Supervisors expressed concerns about care transparency, inmates’ access to timely care, and continued care for individuals once they leave the jail system.
While the Sheriff’s Office shared ongoing efforts to address these concerns, jail staffing shortages, inadequate infrastructure, and funding restraints present challenges when addressing health care issues, Sheriff Bill Brown said.
“Many in our own sectors are passionate about what we do and want to get adequate funding, but it boils down to what is the ability of the county to fund certain things and what are the priorities of the elected Board of Supervisors,” Brown said.
The April 3 special meeting held at Direct Relief in Santa Barbara brought together panelists from the Santa Barbara County Department of Behavioral Wellness, the Sheriff’s Office, and jail health care provider Wellpath, alongside the League of Women Voters and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice to discuss jail health care improvements and ongoing health care needs after several 2023 Santa Barbara County grand jury reports found deficiencies in the jail’s current continuum of care.
“Correctional health care is an incredibly complex and difficult task,” jail Custody Cmdr. Ryan Sullivan said during the meeting. “They are often not the best patients, who don’t take the best care of themselves. We do our best through partnerships with Behavioral Wellness and Wellpath.”
Sullivan highlighted that the county added five behavioral health units across the North and South County branches with the capacity to serve up to 96 individuals with therapeutic groups, individual counseling, and overall better access to care. The Sheriff’s Office also modified rooms to enhance facilities at the Main Jail by creating more space for telehealth and video services to improve health care confidentiality.
“Lack of staffing, lack of space is not ideal, but there is space to do confidential visits in the jail,” Sullivan said. “It’s more resource-driven to move people from housing to space while a practitioner is visiting and move them back. It’s resource-heavy from a custody standpoint.”
Wellpath has registered nurses, social workers, marriage and family therapists, dentists, and dental assistants, but there isn’t 24/7 mental health coverage, as clinicians only work specific hours during the day, leaving a gap in staffing overnight, he said.
The recently implemented Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) program meant to help individuals with substance use disorders served 223 individuals in 2023 and is on track to serve more than double that amount this year, said Matt Hamlin, who helps oversee the MAT program.
“MAT nurses and substance abuse counselors are some of our constraints for the MAT program. We are actively working to rectify those constraints, we are seeking additional funding through opioid settlement funds and a state MAT assistance grant,” Hamlin said. “We are hoping either of these will help these programs.”
There’s currently a waiting list for the MAT program, while the Sheriff’s Office does its best to get people off the waitlist, staffing constraints hinder the ability to get everyone served, he said.
Laurence Severance, a member of the Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, said during the meeting that staffing levels are one aspect of the issue, but bringing Behavioral Wellness and Public Health “into the conversation is going to improve Wellpath oversight.”
The clergy, in partnership with the League of Women Voters, participate on the county’s criminal justice reform work group that meets weekly to study problems and make policy recommendations.
“Contracts should include clear consequences, monetary penalties for shortfalls in required staffing and health care,” Severance said.
He added that reducing jail populations through community-based alternatives would help alleviate workloads and create a better staff-to-resident ratio.
“Most people in jail return to our community. The other observation, which became clear during the pandemic, is [that] there are some people in the jail who don’t need to be in jail to protect public safety,” Severance said. “We give folks a better chance and custodial staff a bit of relief to reduce large numbers.”
