Santa Barbara County Supervisors Express Gastrointestinal Displeasure over Jail Health-Care Contract

There was much talk of “heartburn,” being “in a pickle,” or feeling “bent over a barrel” among the Santa Barbara County supervisors and jail administrators Tuesday as they pinched their collective noses and approved a $14.5 million contract to secure another seven months of health care for inmates at the county’s two jails. This marks the fourth time the supes have extended the jail health-care contract initially awarded to the company Wellpath, which specializes in providing medical and mental-health care to those held behind bars and brings the total amount the county has spent on Wellpath’s services in the past six years to $60 million. 

Aside from the high cost involved, the supervisors expressed much vexation at being asked to approve yet another contract extension — the sixth — without the benefit of this year’s annual evaluation of the company’s performance. That report was due in February; the supes won’t see it until October 17. 

Wellpath’s contract was the target of a blistering critique by this year’s Grand Jury, which blamed the company’s failure to staff psychiatric professionals at the jail from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. for contributing to some of the five jail deaths it investigated. Wellpath’s contract does not require 24/7 staffing of mental-health professionals. The Grand Jury recommended that the contract must be changed. The Grand Jury also blamed the death of one openly suicidal inmate on Wellpath’s failure to pass along information its employees knew to jail personnel. Wellpath cited the laws governing patient confidentiality for not passing this info along.