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An annual inspection of San Benito County’s jail system found that it lacked health care services for those in custody—mostly in the juvenile facility.
Conducted by the county’s Health and Human Services Agency in fall 2023, the inspection, which is required by state law, evaluates the environmental health and sanitary conditions within the county’s jail system. Her report said the inspection found 11 deficiencies among the primary jail, the juvenile facility and the superior court holding facility.
Within those 11 deficiencies, nine were associated with the juvenile facility, including the dispensing of psychotropic medication without written consent; not providing reproductive health services and a lack of immunization services.
The day the inspection took place, there were 92 persons in the primary jail, five of them women, county Health Officer Cheryl Scott said. The juvenile facility held five boys during the inspection.
According to the report, which was presented to the San Benito County Board of Supervisors on March 26, an interview with staff found that medical consent forms were not included in a person’s medical records, though the facility’s psychiatrist noted that parental verbal consent had been obtained.
Jail nurses were given “oral consent, but also written consent must be in the chart,” Scott said during her presentation. There were consent forms in “other places in the facility, but not in the chart.”
At the time of the inspection, only one youth was on psychotropic medication, according to the report.
Similarly, the consent forms for psychotropic medication were not present in the medical files for inmates in the primary jail, the report said.
The report also stated that physical exams were not performed at the facility because the jail was using tele-medicine services instead and vaccinations were not available.
Though not included in the presentation to the supervisors, the inspection found that the wait time to see the mental health clinician was one month, but did not say what an acceptable waiting period would be.
In addition, sign language translators were not available in the jail system. In Scott’s report, Dr. Chia-Chen Lee, the report’s medical and mental evaluator, recommended that translators be available 24/7 to remove any language barriers.
Corrective actions were taken to address each deficiency, Scott said.
They include:
- Wellpath, the healthcare provider for the county’s jail facilities, will have inmates sign a consent form for medication before treatment.
- Youth arriving at the juvenile facility will have access to reproductive health services including education, contraceptives and condoms.
- If a youth arrives already using contraception, the juvenile facility must continue that contraceptive care.
- Condoms will be given when inmates are discharged from the facility.
- Vaccines will be made available.
The environmental health inspection found no deficiencies within the jail facilities. “All of the inspected facilities were in compliance with food code as well as safety and health code,” Scott said.
Supervisor Bea Gonzales was concerned about the inspection results.
“It’s kind of concerning that we are incarcerating individuals and yet we don’t have all of our ducks lined up in a row to give them what we are required by law to give them,” she said.
There was one public comment, made by Elia Salinas, who referenced last year’s Civil Grand Jury Report, which highlighted understaffing that could affect inmates, causing serious mental and physical health problems.
Gonzales asked Scott if the deficiencies were caused by staffing issues, and Scott said no.
“I don’t think it’s a staffing issue,” Scott said. “It’s a busy place and things get out of order. And I don’t think that they are at risk of mismanagement. It is really more that there needs to be attention to making sure that everything is in the right place.”
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