MEDICAL EXPENSES COULD DEVASTATE SOME JAIL BUDGETS

Medical costs for inmates at the Cape Girardeau County Jail have risen substantially this year and are the highest since 1987.

Meanwhile, Bollinger County Sheriff Dan Mesey said the money available to the sheriff's department for inmates is so tight a prisoner requiring major surgery would just "literally destroy our budget."

"It's on my mind constantly," Mesey said of the predicament. "This man could have a physical problem that occurred years ago, but when he's in our facility and it flares up, we have to foot the bill."

Mesey is far from the only one bearing such worries about inmate health care. An Associated Press survey found that more than half of Illinois' 102 counties exceeded their medical expense budgets to care for inmates with various ailments over the last five years. Jail medical costs in 21 counties doubled over the last five years, officials said in the survey in late September and early October.

Health-cost related figures for inmates at the Bollinger County Jail were unavailable Tuesday from secretary Gayle Abernathy, who was not working. But figures for inmate medical services at the Cape Girardeau County Jail this year, as of Tuesday, showed costs of $34,126. That's up by nearly $14,000 from $20,315 in 1990.

It is the highest the county jail's medical costs have been since 1987 when they reached $30,515. Costs then fell to $26,223 in 1988 and to $20,800 in 1989.

The average annual costs during the past five years is $26,000.

"It's expensive, but what are you going to do?" said the department's chief deputy, Leonard Hines. "Just like when you're sick or hurt, you want to go to the doctor. They're entitled to the same type of treatment you give yourself."

About 135 inmates received medical attention this year either one or more times, said Hines. The costs go for doctors, dentists, hospitals, medicine and ambulance calls.

At least five inmates were women who were pregnant. Hines said the pregnant women were released prior to delivery. He said it's only practical to release the women prior to delivery because of the expense that would be involved.

Though significant, most of the county's inmate medical costs are reimbursed by the state. Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said inmate costs become a dilemma when someone who is charged with a misdemeanor is "indigent, sick and likely to flee."

By statute, the state reimburses the county for any medical expenses for felony indigent offenders after their conviction, Swingle said. A lot of the county's medical expenses would be reimbursed because of this, he said. The percentage of reimbursement to the county was unavailable Tuesday; County Auditor H. Weldon Macke could not be reached for comment.

Misdemeanor defendants who are likely to flee are jailed rather than being charged in a summons, as they would be normally, Swingle said. But if they have medical problems, the county is stuck with paying for them, he said. That would likely include an asthma sufferer who enters the jail and then suffers an asthma attack.

If a person has the money, he said, that person is required to pay existing medical expenses.

For an inmate who is acquitted of a B felony or higher, the state pays the person's medical expenses, he said. Swingle said the medical expenses for an inmate acquitted of an offense below a Class B felony are paid by the county. But Swingle said there are "very few acquittals."

The city of Cape Girardeau has only paid out $391 in jail medical costs this year, Cape Girardeau Police Sgt. Carl Kinnison said Tuesday. Kinnison said all of that went for pharmaceuticals. Either $500 or $600 is budgeted each year for jail medical costs, he said.

Howard "Butch" Boyd, Cape Girardeau's police chief, said inmate medical costs are a "problem nationwide and we're looking at it." But he added, "Generally speaking, our prisoners are not sentenced to jail long enough to where it becomes a problem."

Kinnison said city offenders are usually only jailed for a short period of time because they are only serving time for a misdemeanor offense. Plus, the city doesn't jail many city offenders, he said.

"If worse comes to worst, with the judge's permission, we can just let them go," Kinnison said.

The medical costs of any federal prisoners kept at the jail are covered by the federal government, he said. Likewise, with state offenders, he said, the state or county pays the costs.

Mesey said there is some validity in the idea of three or four counties going together on one common jail.

"I don't know if it has been proposed. I'm sure other sheriffs have thought about this also. It's an idea I think that at least deserves some research."