The Leflore County Board of Supervisors signed off Monday on an agreement to have a nurse practitioner from the Leflore County Health Center make weekly trips to the county jail and juvenile detention center.
The nurse practitioner would also be on call to manage health issues at either facility beyond the purview of the nurses presently on staff.
The agenda item kicked off a discussion of health care at the juvenile detention center.
Board Attorney Joyce Chiles said that she, County Judge Kevin Adams and the juvenile center’s director, Robert Fitzpatrick, had a conference call with the Department of Justice last week about bringing the center into compliance with federal guidelines.
The center now has one nurse who is there two days a week. Chiles said that even with the new weekly visits by a nurse practitioner, the level of health care provided at the center will not be adequate.
According to Chiles, two full-time nurses would be sufficient, but there was some confusion over the exact demands of the DOJ.
District 2 Supervisor Robert Moore suggested that the board revisit the issue after taking time to figure out exactly what federal guidelines required.
“We’re a rural county; we don’t have a lot of resources,” said Moore. “They’re asking us to fully staff a detention center that may or may not at any given time have five or six kids in there.”
Fitzpatrick suggested that having three nurses cycling through 12-hour shifts would “fit anything the DOJ would require.”
Moore said he didn’t see how the county could afford hiring three full-time nurses.
Also Monday, Sylvester Hoover came before the board to request financial support for the Robert Johnson Blues Festival, to be held in Baptist Town on April 30.
Hoover has been holding the event for the last 15 years, and it usually draws around 1,500 people, he said. This year, however, he expects a slightly larger crowd because he received a $5,000 grant from the state to advertise the event.
Hoover said Baptist Town is a fitting venue for the festival as it was one of Johnson’s “stomping grounds.”
The lineup for this year’s festival includes Greenwood-based blues performer Lady Trucker; the Mike Eldred Trio, which recently released a record about Baptist Town; Jerry Fair and His Band; and the Steve Johnson Blues Band.
Steve is the grandson of Robert Johnson, an influential blues musician who died in 1938.
The concert will be free, and the event will make money on “food, water and beer,” said Hoover, who did not request a specific dollar amount from the board.
District 3 Supervisor Anjuan Brown said that the board would discuss the matter further and decide in the next two weeks whether to sponsor the event.
In other business Monday, the board:
• Approved a motion to write a letter of support for the Itta Bena Healthy Food Project, which aims to use a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to set up a locally owned grocery store and farmers’ market in Itta Bena.
• Approved the placement of “No Parking” signs on County Road 249. Jimmy Taylor, who lives on the road near where it enters Mathews Brake Wildlife Refuge, came before the board to complain about duck hunters parking on the road in front of his property. Taylor said that the hunters have littered on his property and damaged his truck.
• Contact Nick Rogers at 581-7235 or nogers@gwcommonwealth.com.
