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The state Department of Corrections is laying the groundwork to use the St. Johnsbury jail as a medical “surge” facility if it’s needed to treat prisoners who have tested positive for COVID-19.
Interim Corrections Commissioner Jim Baker said the department has been working with the Vermont Emergency Operations Center, state entities and the Vermont National Guard to deal with a possible “surge” of COVID-19 inmate patients to get them medically isolated and treated.
“We’re looking at the St. Johnsbury facility as a location for that,” Baker said Tuesday, adding that it remains in the planning process.
“We haven’t nailed anything down yet,” the commissioner said. “It’s being considered as an option for medical surge.”
Currently, he said, the department can treat up to 10 COVID-19 patients.
“We have negative pressure rooms in two facilities — St. Albans and Springfield,” he said. “We can handle up to 10 patients right now.”
The plan would include the St. Johnsbury facility, according to Baker, if the numbers rose to greater than 10 at one time.
“We’re certainly hoping we don’t get there,” he said. “but this is the planning process we’re going through to figure how we can absorb as many of those patients and take care of them with good medical care without having to move them into outside medical facilities.”
The plan, he said, would involve moving the prisoners from the St. Johnsbury jail to the roughly 60-bed St. Johnsbury work camp facility on the same campus, he said. The work camp, Baker said, is mostly empty now except for a “few” prisoners who are there.
The work camp is a facility for lower-level offenders who can earn time off their sentences by engaging in projects in the community.
The National Guard, he added, would assist the corrections department with medical staffing and help with exterior security at the site.
“We would provide additional security,” Baker added, “and we would turn the jail itself into a medical surge unit supported by our existing medical staff, but in the planning process we’re working with the Guard to depend on other resources to bring other medical teams in.”
Asked why the St. Johnsbury facility was selected, Baker replied, “We believe that it’s the easiest facility to convert where we could provide medical care.”
The corrections department has told St. Johnsbury town officials about the plan, according to Baker.
“The DOC has contacted us regarding this operation and I feel we have a good line of communication with their management at the facility,” St. Johnsbury Town Manager Chad Whitehead said in an email Tuesday.
“From these discussions,” he added. “it appears they have a good handle on their plans and do not have any concerns.”
No inmates have tested positive for COVID-19, according to Baker. One inmate who had been tested was determined to be negative for the coronavirus and another is awaiting results as of Tuesday afternoon.
The prison population has dropped in recent weeks, mainly due to fewer prisoners coming into the facility through arrests, furlough violations, or being held on bail. For example, Vermont’s prison population was 1,642 on March 13, and fell in a little over two weeks to 1,471 as of Tuesday, Baker said.
