Countryside to continue to consider county jail nursing

By Reed Anfinson

Publisher, Monitor-News

Countryside Public Health will continue researching whether it will provide nursing services to the Swift County Law Enforcement Center jail as well as the jails in Chippewa and Lac qui Parle counties.

County Board Chair Pete Peterson, District 3-south Benson and Torning Township, serves as the board liaison to Countryside’s board. At Countryside’s board meeting, a motion was made and approved to further consider providing jail nursing, Peterson said at the county board’s Feb. 21 meeting.

Countryside provides public health services to Swift, Big Stone, Chippewa, Yellow Medicine, and Big Stone counties. Big Stone doesn’t have a jail and Yellow Medicine contracts for its nursing services. Each of the counties appoints a representative to Countryside’s governing board. There are public members as well.

The vote wasn’t unanimous with three board members who voting against it, Peterson said.

Swift County Sheriff John Holtz told the county board that the sheriffs of the counties that are members of Countryside’s area were “pleasantly surprised” by the vote to continue to considering jail nursing. “It wasn’t a really big shock because we were hoping it was going to go that way. It was what we were hoping for,” he said.

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