Sean's Law

Today's topic: Medical care in jails and prison. March 30, 2008 we lost 39 year old R & B singer Sean. Sean was arrested and jailed in Cuyahoga County and for failure to pay child support. Six days later he was dead. He was denied his prescription for drugs, and the county coroner concluded withdrawal contributed to the R & B singer's death. At that time the jail had no formal policy for determining which inmates get their prescription medications shortly after arriving and which inmates must wait up to two weeks before they get their drugs. Decisions long have been made on a case-by- case basis. The jail's administrator and a doctor who oversees medical care on Friday proposed a policy change so that new inmates taking benzodiazepines, a family of drugs including , get the medicines as soon as their prescriptions can be verified. The 128th General Assembly (2009-2010) in their regular session introduced H.B. # 84. In essence the bill requires health-trained personnel to perform a medical, dental, and mental health screening on each inmate upon arrival at a jail, to establish procedures that health-trained personnel must follow if an inmate is taking or any other benzodiazepine, and to provide that the sheriff ensure that health-trained personnel responsible for medical, dental, and mental health screening be trained as to symptoms and consequences of withdrawal from addictive drugs. Sean's Law H.B. No 85 is Introduced in 2009-2010 128th General Assembly Regular Session by Representative Boyd with Cosponsors: Representatives Williams, S.,B., Skindell, Domenick, Mallory.