'This cannot continue': Lawmakers ask Justice Department to probe Duval jail's health care

Two Jacksonville lawmakers are asking the U.S. Justice Department to investigate whether Duval County jail inmate deaths and complaints about inadequate health care point to violations of the law.

“From people with diabetes not receiving their insulin medication to Mr. Dexter Barry, a heart transplant recipient, dying … this cannot continue without serious intervention,” argued a letter that state Sen. Tracie Davis and state Rep. Angie Nixon addressed Tuesday to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Barry, 54, died last year following his release from jail, where he had been held without required medication after being charged with simple assault in a dispute between neighbors.

Publicity surrounding his death and reporting by the online news site The Tributary helped focus attention on the jail’s health care system and last month led to the Sheriff’s Office switching providers from Armor Health, headquartered in Miami, to Alabama-based NaphCare.

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But the lawmakers, both Democrats, aren’t content that care issues have all been accounted for.

“[W]e urge the USDOJ to open federal criminal and civil investigations into any and all incidents involving serious injury or death due to medical negligence,” the lawmakers wrote. “It is unconscionable that human beings in custody of the state or county receive anything less than dignified and basic care.”

The lawmakers said the number of deaths at the jail had tripled since medical care there was contracted to a for-profit company in 2017. By early August, 11 inmates had died this year, Times-Union news partner First Coast News reported.

The Tributary reported last month that a national accrediting agency, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, decided in April to place the jail on a probationary status.

A commission email published by the website said that by the end of August the jail would have a “focused survey … to verify corrective action and improvement efforts are underway” as well as surveys over the next three years.

A regional executive with Armor told the commission in May that it had “already started corrective action on deficient areas,” the website reported.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Investigate deaths, health care in Jacksonville jail, lawmakers ask feds