ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 12, 1996 TAG: 9612120011
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA and ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITERS
Three inmates with emergency medical expenses totaling more than $50,000 have forced the Montgomery County sheriff to ask the county for more money for the jail's budget.
Sheriff Doug Marrs said the "unprecedented" situation included a $33,370 medical bill for one inmate that the county will probably have to pay. Early indications are the remaining two inmates' bills may be paid by the state.
The Board of Supervisors voted 6 to 1 Monday to transfer $53,310 from a contingences fund to cover the medical costs. Supervisor Joe Stewart voted "no."
Then-inmate Joseph P. Summey's more than $30,000 bill nearly obliterated the jail's $40,000 budget after the hemophiliac had to be flown by emergency helicopter to Charlottesville for treatment.
Hemophiliacs suffer from a hereditary condition that makes it difficult for their blood to clot; without proper treatment, even minor injuries could cause a person to bleed to death.
The Montgomery Sheriff's Office picked up the 37-year-old Summey Sept. 22 on a fugitive warrant out of Forsyth County, N.C. He was arrested on a charge of transporting a juvenile across state lines to avoid a court order. The child was Summey's infant daughter, who was the center of a custody battle.
A Montgomery County judge gave the North Carolina officers 30 days to pick up Summey after an extradition hearing in early October.
Marrs said when Summey was admitted to the jail, jailers got basic medical information. Summey did not, however, tell the jailers he was a hemophiliac. Marrs said that information would not have made a difference in where Summey was kept in the jail.
On Oct. 19, Summey got in a fight with some other inmates, Marrs said. The area he was held in has several cells as well as a common area where inmates can interact, Marrs said.
During the fight in the common area, another inmate punched Summey in the face. That injury plus a cut he got on the back of his head would have been easily treated at a local hospital if he was not a hemophiliac, Marrs said.
"Can't we bill this guy $10 per month for the rest of his life?" Supervisor Nick Rush asked Marrs at Monday's supervisors meeting.
"I just hate to see people get this freeload. It's probably good that we saved his life. But he doesn't appreciate it. He doesn't care," Rush added.
Marrs said most jail inmates lack financial resources and rarely provide reliable medical histories when they are incarcerated.
"I need to know how we can prevent it. What if it happened again?" Supervisor Mary Biggs said.
Marrs said it is difficult to keep inmates segregated. The county jail has only four isolation cells for a facility that averages more than 100 inmates. Of the inmates he said, "None of them like each other."
Board members asked Marrs to investigate obtaining insurance to prevent another unexpected medical expense from jail inmates. They referred him to the county's risk management adviser for help.
Marrs said Tuesday that he is investigating every avenue he can to pay Summey's bill, but early indications offer little hope that someone besides Montgomery County taxpayers will foot the bill.
Two other inmates with bills totaling $19,840 also hit the jail's $40,000 emergency medical fund hard. Marrs said there is a distinct possibility, however, that the state will pay those bills if the inmates qualify.
Inmate medical bills become the state's responsibility if the person serves at least six months and one day in the jail, Marrs said. The two inmates have not been sentenced for all the charges they face, so it remains unclear if the county or the state will pay their bills.
Bob Brannigan, chief nursing officer at Columbia Montgomery Regional Hospital, said patient confidentiality barred him from discussing details of the case.
But he did say that hemophiliacs are rare in the New River Valley, and the need for the drug that Summey required to stop his bleeding was "a very unusual circumstance."
The blood clotting agent critical to the case was not stocked by hospitals either locally or regionally, Brannigan said.
The University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville was the most readily available source for treating Summey's condition, which is known as Von Willibrandt's Disease.
To treat the patient locally, Montgomery Regional would have had to order the antigen, a process that would have taken a day to complete, Brannigan said.
"In some cases, that's just not an appropriate thing to do, to wait," he said. "If he needed something we didn't have we needed to do what's best for him.
"If your child was in there, wouldn't you want the doctor to do what's best?"
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