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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The Salt Lake County jail will open its own acute medical unit, eliminating the need to transport inmates to and from local hospitals.
Sheriff Jim Winder said the move would reduce the cost of health care for inmates and completely get rid of transport costs.
The jail opened in 1999 and was designed to be able to house an acute medical unit. But the funding to add it never came through until the County Council approved it last week. "It sat dormant all this time," Sheriff Jim Winder said. "It will be the first time it's open since the jail was built."
The jail needs to hire 11 new full-time employees. Winder said the cost of covering the new hires will be offset by the reduction in other costs and council members liked the idea of a smaller bottom line. "We save money," Councilman Jeff Allen said. "Medical costs have gotten so expensive that we can now provide them, we believe, at a cheaper rate than we can out in the private sector."
Winder and Allen said they'd like to set up some sort of partnership with area nursing schools to provide students with on-the-job learning experience. "They'll see sometimes in a week what they'll see in a year" in the emergency room, Winder said.
Intermountain Healthcare will assist the county in buying equipment and setting up the medical unit, Allen said.
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Information from: Deseret News
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
