Post by sclcookie on Jun 4, 2006 1:07:54 GMT -5
Jail's retiring doctor looks back on career
As Dr. John Sparks prepares to pack up 25 years worth of memories from his
office on the first floor of the Bexar County Jail, one unfinished project
lies rolled up on a corner of his desk.
Sparks, the 78-year-old psychiatrist retiring at the end of June as
medical director of the jail and the Juvenile Detention Center, hatched
the idea with Bexar County Sheriff Ralph Lopez to build a 500-bed mental
hospital for inmates - not just from Bexar County but from 32 South Texas
counties. Both Sparks and Lopez keep the architectural renderings near
their desks.
About 10 % of Bexar County's jail inmates - 400 or so - are mentally ill.
Wild eyes stare through thick glass portholes of isolation cells. Others,
their clothing confiscated to thwart suicide attempts, wear thick,
odd-looking smocks fastened with straps. Some stare vacantly at a communal
TV set mounted near the ceiling of a psych unit.
In a perfect world, a better place than the jail would exist to house many
of them. But with funding siphoned from state hospitals in recent years,
the mentally ill remain warehoused in jails.
"It's dead," Lopez said of the project, having reached that conclusion
after meetings with state lawmakers.
Even if a jail mental hospital could be built through, say, a bond issue,
it would be hard to find the millions of dollars in operating costs to run
it - much of which would have to come from those South Texas counties.
"Some counties don't even have enough to buy medicines for them," Sparks
said.
Still, Sparks notes, some things have improved over the years. Both the
San Antonio Police Department and the Sheriff's Office have begun to train
their officers to recognize the mentally ill and get them into appropriate
treatment instead of the jail. And the Center for Health Care Services,
the county's mental health authority, has developed a fairly effective
jail diversion program.
Still, in the Bexar County Jail, 45 eligible inmates await a vacant state
hospital bed somewhere. Until that happens, they're stuck.
The psychiatrist
Sparks, his hair cut close in military fashion, doesn't look his 78 years.
"He looked the same in 1983 when I started working with him as he does
now," said George B. Hernndez Jr., president of the University Health
System, which took over Sparks' department from the county in the
mid-1990s.
He speaks in a psychiatrist's tone - measured, gentle and always precise -
that belies the often-violent lives of his patients. He was physically
assaulted in the jail only once.
"I had somebody hit me across the face and break my glasses, but that's
the only time," Sparks said. "A lot of written threats, but they're
usually not carried out."
He no longer treats patients himself, leaving that task to his assistants
- confining his duties to administration and court evaluations.
His office has weathered its share of controversies, like the recent
overdose by Ronnie Joe Neal, who was condemned to die for the 2004 slaying
of schoolteacher Diane Tilly. Neal obtained several Xanax tablets from
another inmate.
Sparks doesn't yet know who will replace him - perhaps two people, one to
oversee the evaluation and medical care of jail prisoners, and another to
evaluate the sanity and competency of defendants for the courts.
When he began 25 years ago, a New York psychiatrist hired as a consultant
to the jail grandly recommended that all inmates be entered into group
therapy. It was clear, Sparks recalled, that he didn't understand the
transient nature of jail inmates. Most are there weeks or months, awaiting
trial before being freed or going to prison.
Substance abuse is a huge problem among the inmates - more than 50 % are
abusers, Sparks said. They arrive suffering from hallucinations, delusions
and paranoia.
"We have some people who do some extraordinarily unusual substances,"
Sparks said. "We've had two or three recently who have brief psychoses due
to the drugs. They're using Ecstasy or PCP - PCP is old, but it still
comes up occasionally. They smoke marijuana that's been soaked in
embalming fluid. It's horrible what people will do to themselves."
All sorts of medical problems, not just mental illness and substance
abuse, are treated by Sparks' staff. Diabetics line up each morning to get
their blood sugar tested. A full-time obstetrician-gynecologist cares for
a number of pregnant inmates. 9 or 10 at any given time are close to
full-term, Sparks said.
Very little guidance
Sparks was hired by the county in late 1980 to evaluate the mental status
of criminal defendants for the Bexar County courts, after a long Air Force
career that included several years at Wilford Hall Medical Center and a
year in Vietnam. He didn't have a lot of guidance as he took the job - the
county psychiatrist who hired him had a heart attack before he arrived. In
1981, a consent decree was filed in a federal lawsuit initiated years
earlier by inmate Gordon O. Devonish, which put the jail under federal
control. That led to the construction of the current jail and the creation
of Sparks' medical department.
Sparks has heard a lot of woeful tales in his 25 years of listening to
inmates. Some of them were actually true.
"Some you become callous about, because the exaggeration is just sort of
obvious. You haven't really lost your sensitivity, but you're not going to
be taken in by this story. But there are some sad ones, and that doesn't
change."
Rare, however, is the inmate who takes responsibility for his or her
actions, he said.
"Denial and projection are very common. It's always your fault. That's why
I'm here - you, not me. You caught me, you arrested me, you put me here. I
didn't do anything."
(source: San Antonio Express-News)
As Dr. John Sparks prepares to pack up 25 years worth of memories from his
office on the first floor of the Bexar County Jail, one unfinished project
lies rolled up on a corner of his desk.
Sparks, the 78-year-old psychiatrist retiring at the end of June as
medical director of the jail and the Juvenile Detention Center, hatched
the idea with Bexar County Sheriff Ralph Lopez to build a 500-bed mental
hospital for inmates - not just from Bexar County but from 32 South Texas
counties. Both Sparks and Lopez keep the architectural renderings near
their desks.
About 10 % of Bexar County's jail inmates - 400 or so - are mentally ill.
Wild eyes stare through thick glass portholes of isolation cells. Others,
their clothing confiscated to thwart suicide attempts, wear thick,
odd-looking smocks fastened with straps. Some stare vacantly at a communal
TV set mounted near the ceiling of a psych unit.
In a perfect world, a better place than the jail would exist to house many
of them. But with funding siphoned from state hospitals in recent years,
the mentally ill remain warehoused in jails.
"It's dead," Lopez said of the project, having reached that conclusion
after meetings with state lawmakers.
Even if a jail mental hospital could be built through, say, a bond issue,
it would be hard to find the millions of dollars in operating costs to run
it - much of which would have to come from those South Texas counties.
"Some counties don't even have enough to buy medicines for them," Sparks
said.
Still, Sparks notes, some things have improved over the years. Both the
San Antonio Police Department and the Sheriff's Office have begun to train
their officers to recognize the mentally ill and get them into appropriate
treatment instead of the jail. And the Center for Health Care Services,
the county's mental health authority, has developed a fairly effective
jail diversion program.
Still, in the Bexar County Jail, 45 eligible inmates await a vacant state
hospital bed somewhere. Until that happens, they're stuck.
The psychiatrist
Sparks, his hair cut close in military fashion, doesn't look his 78 years.
"He looked the same in 1983 when I started working with him as he does
now," said George B. Hernndez Jr., president of the University Health
System, which took over Sparks' department from the county in the
mid-1990s.
He speaks in a psychiatrist's tone - measured, gentle and always precise -
that belies the often-violent lives of his patients. He was physically
assaulted in the jail only once.
"I had somebody hit me across the face and break my glasses, but that's
the only time," Sparks said. "A lot of written threats, but they're
usually not carried out."
He no longer treats patients himself, leaving that task to his assistants
- confining his duties to administration and court evaluations.
His office has weathered its share of controversies, like the recent
overdose by Ronnie Joe Neal, who was condemned to die for the 2004 slaying
of schoolteacher Diane Tilly. Neal obtained several Xanax tablets from
another inmate.
Sparks doesn't yet know who will replace him - perhaps two people, one to
oversee the evaluation and medical care of jail prisoners, and another to
evaluate the sanity and competency of defendants for the courts.
When he began 25 years ago, a New York psychiatrist hired as a consultant
to the jail grandly recommended that all inmates be entered into group
therapy. It was clear, Sparks recalled, that he didn't understand the
transient nature of jail inmates. Most are there weeks or months, awaiting
trial before being freed or going to prison.
Substance abuse is a huge problem among the inmates - more than 50 % are
abusers, Sparks said. They arrive suffering from hallucinations, delusions
and paranoia.
"We have some people who do some extraordinarily unusual substances,"
Sparks said. "We've had two or three recently who have brief psychoses due
to the drugs. They're using Ecstasy or PCP - PCP is old, but it still
comes up occasionally. They smoke marijuana that's been soaked in
embalming fluid. It's horrible what people will do to themselves."
All sorts of medical problems, not just mental illness and substance
abuse, are treated by Sparks' staff. Diabetics line up each morning to get
their blood sugar tested. A full-time obstetrician-gynecologist cares for
a number of pregnant inmates. 9 or 10 at any given time are close to
full-term, Sparks said.
Very little guidance
Sparks was hired by the county in late 1980 to evaluate the mental status
of criminal defendants for the Bexar County courts, after a long Air Force
career that included several years at Wilford Hall Medical Center and a
year in Vietnam. He didn't have a lot of guidance as he took the job - the
county psychiatrist who hired him had a heart attack before he arrived. In
1981, a consent decree was filed in a federal lawsuit initiated years
earlier by inmate Gordon O. Devonish, which put the jail under federal
control. That led to the construction of the current jail and the creation
of Sparks' medical department.
Sparks has heard a lot of woeful tales in his 25 years of listening to
inmates. Some of them were actually true.
"Some you become callous about, because the exaggeration is just sort of
obvious. You haven't really lost your sensitivity, but you're not going to
be taken in by this story. But there are some sad ones, and that doesn't
change."
Rare, however, is the inmate who takes responsibility for his or her
actions, he said.
"Denial and projection are very common. It's always your fault. That's why
I'm here - you, not me. You caught me, you arrested me, you put me here. I
didn't do anything."
(source: San Antonio Express-News)