By Brian Shane

Staff Writer

Worcester County officials unanimously voted to renew the service contract for the medical provider at the county jail, even as that provider is a defendant named in a pending $5 million wrongful death lawsuit.

When asked during a public comment period at their Oct. 1 meeting whether they were aware of the lawsuit, or why the commissioners supported the contract renewal, only Commissioner Joe Mitrecic responded.

“Many lawsuits are filed for different reasons,” he said. “It doesn’t mean they’re substantiated. That’s all that we can really talk about here. Just because the lawsuit was filed doesn’t mean that it was substantiated. And they have done a good job for us over the years.”

Jennifer Albero of Delmar is the plaintiff in a federal lawsuit filed earlier this year. Her son Kyle Arthur, 36, took his own life in the jail on Sept. 10, 2021, after suffering the effects of opiate withdrawal. The complaint names Worcester County, Wellpath, and other individual medical providers and jail personnel as defendants.

Albero in the suit claims her son would not have hung himself in his cell had guards kept a closer watch on him as being suicidal. The suit also alleges that Wellpath’s medical providers did not meet the standard of care for a prisoner in custody who is coming down from opioids. She is seeking $5 million in compensatory damages.

Kyle Arthur was on probation for prior burglary charges when he was arrested Sept. 9, 2021, for driving under the influence of drugs. Arthur was brought to the jail and did not survive 24 hours in police custody.

The lawsuit alleges that, according to video evidence, the guard who should have been making his rounds every 30 minutes instead only entered Arthur’s cell block three times during an eight-hour shift. That guard was the one who eventually found Arthur in a jail cell hanging from his bedsheets.

The lawsuit also claims when Arthur started to go into withdrawal, his heart started racing 160 beats per minute, and that medics offered only aspirin and motion sickness pills when they could have provided anti-withdrawal medication.

Defendants have responded with a motion to dismiss, saying in their rebuttal that jail workers are not liable because government employees doing their job are immune from prosecution.

The plaintiff’s most serious complaint is that Wellpath failed to provide state-required withdrawal protocols, known as “medication-assisted treatment,” or MAT for short.

However, the defense in its most recent rebuttal is arguing that the government, not Wellpath, is responsible for funding, implementing, and overseeing MAT protocols, according to court documents.

Based in Nashville, Wellpath employs 15,000 people at more than 130 facilities in 37 states. On its website, Wellpath calls itself a “national leader in developing and offering MAT services to prevent and treat substance abuse disorder (SUD) … We aim to treat addition, change lives, break the cycle of recidivism, and heal communities.”

Tuesday’s contract renewal — the county has worked with Wellpath since 2011 —was approved at the written request of Warden Tim Mulligan for $1.8 million. Mulligan attended Tuesday’s commissioners’ meeting to present the contract renewal as an agenda item.

When Commissioner President Chip Bertino called upon the contract renewal as an agenda item to be heard, he spent exactly 20 seconds to hear motions to approve and to guide the body to pass it – all before Mulligan had even made his way to the lectern to speak.

“Let’s do this, so we can get him out of here, and he can get back to work,” Bertino said, taking a motion to approve from Commissioner Caryn Abbot and a second from Commissioner Ted Elder. No further discussion ensued. The vote was unanimous.