Request By:
Elizabeth M. Blincoe
Assistant Boone County Attorney
P.O. Box 169
Burlington, Kentucky 41005
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Gerard R. Gerhard, Assistant Attorney General
Re: County Liability for Necessary Medical Care for Indigent Prisoner in County Jail. AGO Corr. No. 91-(O)-306.
By letter of February 20, 1991, you asked that we indicate when a county's liability for necessary medical care of indigent prisoners ceases, in the circumstance of a person who was a prisoner when hospitalized, whose status as a prisoner expires before the individual's release from the hospital. You cited three scenarios that give rise to your question: (1) A prisoner's bond is changed so that the individual may be released on recognizance, (2) the prisoner's term of confinement ends while the individual is still hospitalized, and (3) the prisoner is released upon probation of a portion of his or her sentence.
In our view, county liability for necessary medical care of an indigent person, who is hospitalized while a prisoner of the county jail, ceases when an individual's status as a prisoner ceases.
As pointed out in your letter, the cost of necessary medical care for prisoners in the county jail is to be paid from the county jail budget, pursuant to KRS 441.045(3) (subject to exceptions provided therein).
In our view, where a statute requires that the cost of necessary medical care [KRS 441.045(9)] for indigent prisoners in the county jail shall be paid from the county jail budget [KRS 441.045(3)], such requirement, and thus liability, ceases when an individual is no longer a prisoner. Under the three scenarios you cite, when an individual's status as a prisoner terminates for any of the reasons you mention (or for other reasons), the county's liability for necessary medical care pursuant to KRS 441.045(3) simultaneously terminates. Cf., OAG 85-54, copy enclosed.