Right roust at the jail

It took 20 months, $15.6 million, the deaths of several inmates after receiving questionable care and an epidemic staph infection for former Sheriff Ed Bieluch finally to replace the private medical provider at the Palm Beach County Jail. To the benefit of jail and court employees, lawyers, contractors, inmates and the public, current Sheriff Ric Bradshaw is not as indifferent or incompetent with the new company.

Just 10 months into its two-year, $20 million contract, Correctional Medical Services Inc. has been warned that Sheriff Bradshaw will not tolerate cost overruns and poor service. The sheriff invited a competing company to tour the jail last week and offer an "assessment." CMS had been told to expect an external auditor, not a competitor. But the unusual, if sneaky, tactic was effective. As Sheriff Bradshaw said, "We got their attention."

CMS, low bidder last summer to replace Prison Health Services, contracted to spend $900,000 for care of inmates needing treatment at a hospital or clinic. Already, that cost has reached $3.3 million. Prescription-drug costs also are over CMS' budget. Not surprisingly, CMS blamed its predecessor for higher-than-budgeted expenses. "Quite frankly," a CMS spokesman said, "there were a number of cases left by the previous provider that needed to be addressed."

There are other remnants of Prison Health Services' poor performance. Just last week, a circuit judge ruled that Rosanne Bilello could sue Prison Health Services, a former jail doctor employed by the company and the sheriff's office for punitive damages in the 2003 death of her husband, Patrick Bilello. Ms. Bilello says that while her husband was an inmate at the jail, he begged for medical treatment, but Prison Health Services ignored him. Other inmates had complained that PHS denied medications to patients, particularly drugs for psychiatric care. In one case, a county judge released a schizophrenic inmate after learning that PHS had failed to give him any medicine.

So Sheriff Bradshaw is correct to not wait for things to get worse with CMS. Sheriff Bieluch hired CMS with more emphasis on cost than quality, refusing even to consider a bid by a Wellington-based team of doctors who missed the deadline by a mere seven minutes. Notably, he hired CMS just months beforeleaving office. Sheriff Bradshaw's attention to a new prospective bidder should remind CMS that the incumbent is replaceable.