THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 11, 1996 TAG: 9610110501
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 60 lines
It was like winning the lottery.
And then finding out the newscaster reported the wrong numbers.
For more than a week, officials at the Norfolk City Jail celebrated the announcement that the facility had won a prestigious health care award.
It was cause to pat themselves on the back. For helping to pin a gold star on the city jail just weeks before a new wing opens. For turning around years of reported faulty health care. For putting the Norfolk City Jail on the national map.
But there is more than one Norfolk on that map.
And it was one of the other Norfolks that won the award, jail officials learned Thursday.
``Of course we were embarrassed,'' said George Schaefer, a jail spokesman, after learning that the winner was the Norfolk County, Mass., jail. ``We wish that there hadn't been a mistake.''
Sheriff Robert McCabe and Schaefer received the congratulations Oct. 1 from the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. They got wind of the snafu just moments before preparing a news release about the honor.
According to the first letter, the award ``is presented to only one facility per year and is selected from among hundreds of prisons, jails and juvenile confinement facilities participating in the national commission's accreditation program.''
Edward A. Harrison, president of the commission, said the Virginia jail simply was not nominated, so that facility was not considered for the award.
``It was purely a clerical error,'' Harrison said from his Chicago office Thursday. ``It's very unfortunate, and we're very embarrassed about it.''
The commission sent McCabe a letter Thursday stating: ``This embarrassing mistake occurred due to the similarity in names between your facility and another that received the nomination. . . .''
When the first letter came, jail officials felt their work in upgrading health care at the facility had been rewarded, Schaefer said.
``We said we felt someone has acknowledged the hard work we've done,'' Schaefer said.
In 1994, an investigation by the Justice Department concluded that the crowded Norfolk jail was a serious public health threat and that living conditions were ``offensive to elementary concepts of human decency.''
It also stated: ``Medical care is grossly inadequate and fails to meet the serious needs of inmates.''
Eighteen inmates died in the jail between 1983 and 1994, most from medical problems.
In June 1994, McCabe fired the private medical provider, Correctional Medical Services, and signed Norfolk Community Hospital to provide medical services. That union has turned jail health care around 180 degrees, officials have said.
So, award or not, jail officials feel as if they have won something this year.
``Although we are disappointed in the mistake,'' Schaefer said, ``we do not feel that it takes anything away from the job our staff and Norfolk Community Hospital have done in improving health care for inmates in the Norfolk City Jail.''
``We still think we've done a good job,'' he added. ``Maybe they'll come back next year.'' by CNB