The Cleveland County Detention Center’s health care provider presented a proposed change in its contract to add two positions, increase medical and mental health professional hours and raise its monthly rates by around $43,000 during the Cleveland County Commissioners meeting Tuesday.
The proposed amendments follow ongoing investigations surrounding the recent deaths of two inmates as well as a 44 percent increase in the detention center’s average daily population from 2020 to 2022.
Rhett Burnett, Turn Key Health Clinics’ director of client relations, said the detention center currently provides 12 hours of mental health professional services, with those spread across 4-hour shifts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He proposed expanding that to 20 hours, opening 4-hour shifts on Tuesday and Thursday.
He also requested two additional licensed practical nurses, certified medical assistants or emergency medical technicians, with one working a 12-hour nightly shift seven days a week and the other working 12-hour weekend shifts. The proposed staffing matrix would be included in an amended contract between Turn Key and the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office.
The Cleveland County Detention Center's current and proposed staffing matrixes.
Burnett said the need comes from a climbing average daily population, which is calculated by adding up the monthly total of inmates, an amount recorded each day at 8 a.m., divided by the number of days per month. He said Turn Key has discussed the detention center’s medical staffing needs with Cleveland County Sheriff Chris Amason for about a month.
The average daily population in the detention center has increased from 376 in 2020, to 456 in 2021, to 541 in 2022. Inmates' encounters with mental health professionals also rose 153 percent, from 719 in 2020 to 1,821 in 2022.
OU alumna and Cookie Cottage owner Shannon Hanchett, 38, was found dead around 12:45 a.m. Dec. 8 in the detention center. Life-saving measures were taken, and emergency medical services responded.
Body camera footage and 911 calls related to Hanchett’s Nov. 26 arrest for making false 911 calls and obstructing an officer demonstrated a call for service from the 1400 block of 24th Ave. NW at an AT&T Store was the result of multiple 911 calls requesting assistance in verifying the safety of Hanchett’s family.
Beds for mental health patients were available in Cleveland County the night Hanchett was arrested, according to the Norman Transcript. According to the county detention center’s current staffing matrix, a licensed practical nurse and certified medical assistant were available the nights Hanchett was booked and died.
Noble resident Kathryn Milano, 66, died less than two weeks later, on Dec. 20 after experiencing a medical emergency while in custody. The sheriff’s office said Dec. 29 that Milano died in a local hospital, but a Milano family spokesperson said she was dead for 40 minutes before she reached the hospital.
Two of the detention center’s administrators resigned in January, though no reasoning was given. OU Daily requested the letters of resignation, but the sheriff’s office denied the request, stating they related to “ongoing personnel investigations.”
In its amended contract, Turn Key also requested replacing its “medical and nursing services provided” section to ensure adequate staffing levels, the administration of prescribed medications, provide staffing schedules to the sheriff’s office and require timely responses to sick calls.
District 1 Commissioner Rod Cleveland asked Burnett to define “timely” and specify its meaning in the contract. Burnett didn’t define it in the meeting but said he could in the contract.
Burnett said the additions would increase Turn Key’s ability to care for inmates and provide flexibility if the average daily population grew.
“This would help us ensure that we are matching the needs we’ve had,” Burnett said. “We’re meeting those standards now, but it is a very, very hectic and busy place with the needs that come from the inmates, and this would help us handle it better.”
Cleveland asked about communication between detention staff and Turn Key when inmates are taken off-site for medical care.
“There’s a good communication there,” Burnett said. “Usually, if someone is sent out, they’re kind of flagged so that we know when they come back in, we need to know exactly what was done at the other medical provider. We need to know what things to continue medication-wise, etc.”
Cleveland also suggested increasing Turn Key’s liability insurance from $1 million to $2 million.
Turn Key also proposed replacing a section of the contract to charge Cleveland County approximately $120,000 a month. Jesse White, Turn Key’s chief financial officer, requested and received in July a 3 percent increase in its monthly rate to about $77,000 to remedy the impacts of inflation, according to a letter obtained by the OU Daily via a records request.
Turn Key’s current monthly fee covers an average daily population of 500 inmates. In its proposed amendment, Cleveland County would contribute $2.43 per every inmate above 500, per day.
