Spokane County examining contract proposals to provide medical care in jail

The New Year could bring a new medical services provider to the Spokane County Jail.

The Spokane County Commission will decide Tuesday whether to grant a one-month, $685,000 contract extension to NaphCare, the private contractor that provides medical services in the Spokane County Jail.

Ken Mohr, a project manager for the county, said during a Monday meeting that the extension will allow time to finish negotiating “a new contract with a new vendor.”

“We’re very close on the negotiations,” Mohr said. “I won’t get into detail on that for obvious reasons.”

Spokane County CEO Scott Simmons told The Spokesman-Review after this article’s initial online publication Monday that Mohr meant to say “a vendor.”

Simmons said the county is in the midst of a request for proposals period and that no decision has been made regarding who the next provider may be – including whether the county will choose to continue contracting with NaphCare.

The commissioners will be briefed publicly on the new contract for medical services in the Spokane County Jail, including who the provider is, at a Jan. 7 meeting, Simmons said.

NaphCare has provided outside medical services for county inmates since the commissioners voted to outsource care in 2016. The three-member commission at the time agreed to an initial six-month, $2.6 million contract after years of staffing woes within the county’s medical team for detention services.

Concerns around the Alabama-based company’s conduct in the Spokane County Jail and detention facilities across the country surfaced shortly after the ink dried.

In 2017, county inmates alleged the company was not upholding its responsibilities, saying NaphCare repeatedly delayed providing necessary care, including prescriptions and surgeries.

Like many companies that provide medical services to prisons and jails, NaphCare has faced dozens of lawsuits over the years.

In 2022, a federal jury awarded $27 million in damages to the family of a woman who died in the Spokane County Jail.

Cindy Lou Hill was booked into the jail on Aug. 21, 2018, on suspicion of heroin possession. Four days later, the 55-year-old was shirtless on the floor of her cell, unable to move and complaining of intense stomach pain.

Hill wasn’t brought to a doctor or sent to the emergency room. A NaphCare nurse determined Hill’s symptoms were consistent with heroin withdrawal and sent her to a medical cell.

Hill died hours later of a bacterial infection caused by a ruptured intestine.

Hill’s estate sued Spokane County and NaphCare, arguing her death could have been avoided if she’d received proper medical care. The U.S. District Court jury agreed and decided NaphCare would pay the estate $26.5 million in damages. Spokane County was ordered to pay $275,000.

“It was absolutely the right decision,” Ed Budge, the attorney for Hill’s estate, said in 2022. “The jury recognized that a message needed to be sent.”

NaphCare filed an appeal of that decision in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year, according to court records.

Another notable lawsuit against NaphCare ended in 2019 when the company was part of a $3 million settlement with the family of a man who died in a Virginia jail.

At the time of his death in 2015, Jamycheal Mitchell was a 24-year-old inmate at Hampton Roads Regional Jail.

Mitchell, who suffered from mental illness, lost nearly 40 pounds and experienced extreme swelling in both legs while in custody. The Virginia Office of the Inspector General determined that he received substandard care from NaphCare nurses before his death.