County Jail Mental Health Providers

the county is looking at having new medical and mental health providers in place for the jail … but there’s some controversy about when that could happen. abc-seven’s andrew j. polk is live with new information. andrew? rick — corizon health currently covers all inmates in the county … but there are complications with the new service providers the county wants to take over in december. the county now wants university of texas medical to take over health services … and the locally-based emergence health care for mental health coverage. but – emergence says it won’t be ready on-time. u-t-m would have to provide that too, until emergence is ready. commissioners questioned why emergence was still even being considered a part of the $7.6 million dollar contract… but county judge veronica escobar says it’s important to stick with a local company that can eventually provide a wider range of services. “they will have some fundamenta services ready for november 1st as you heard, but the more innovative broader range of services that we want to purchase which we believe will help with recidivism and will hopefully in the future prevent the jail from being a revolving door for mentally ill inmates, that’s going to take some additional time for ehn to ramp up and prepare for.” the county has postponed action on the new contract for a week, so the remaing details on when emergence will take over can be hashed out more exactly. rick — back to you. andrew thanks. we’ll be right back with