Correctional Center implements plan to reduce expenses

As a way of cutting back on unnecessary expenses, officials at the Southeast Kansas Regional Correctional Center are changing the ways they provide medication to inmates.

SEKRCC Program Coordinator Jimmy Nichols, who met with Bourbon County commissioners on Friday to discuss the new plan, said inmates will no longer receive over-the-counter medications whenever they request them. Instead, those medicines will only be distributed twice a day.

"They're allowed to have over-the-counter meds twice a day now," he said, "once in the morning at breakfast and once in the evening at supper. We're not refusing them anything, we're just telling them you can either get them in the morning or in the evening."

Nichols said this new policy will help prevent inmates from racking up large medication bills, which the SEKRCC is often forced to pay.

"We'd have indigent people stay here six months and run up a $400 bill that they couldn't pay," he said. "But we can't really deny them the meds if we offer them to everybody else. This should save thousands of dollars a year."

Another change involves the elimination of inmates' doctor visits. Under the new policy, a doctor or nurse will visit the jail once every two weeks, and that will be the only time sick calls are answered, Nichols said.

"It used to be that anybody that filled out a sick call would get to see a doctor," he said.

Also, meetings with a doctor or nurse will be paid for out of the inmate's commissary account. Nichols said that measure was also taken to prevent inmates from taking advantage of their access to medical attention. He added that an indigent inmate's commissary account will still be billed, though the jail may never receive payment for it.

"If they're indigent, we can't hold that against them, we can't take (medical attention) away from them," he said. "Now, the people that have commissary money, we're going to start taking money off their account."

Nichols said he has noticed a trend where inmates will ask to see a doctor, will be told the cost will be taken out of their commissary money and then the inmate will say "never mind."

"Because they'd rather spend the money on their candy bars and their soda," he said. "Hopefully, this will root out those who are taking advantage of it."

Another issue Nichols has noticed over the past year is an increase in inmates asking to visit the mental health department for various reasons, including depression.

"If they were claiming that they were having nightmares or that they were hearing voices, they'd go see mental health," he said. "To me, when you come to jail or are in jail, you would think it would just be human to be depressed. Just because you're depressed because you're in jail, that's no reason to pump somebody full of medication."

Now, inmates will not be allowed to visit mental health without a court order. Nichols said that, by law, inmates aren't supposed to be able to leave the jail without a transportation order by the court.

Nichols said he hopes these new policies will eliminate many of the "frivolous" expenses the SEKRCC encounters each month.