Agency Changes Stand on Mexican Boy Seeking New Liver

Attorneys for California Children Services filed a motion Monday to vacate a court-ordered guardianship that was awarded a 5-year-old Mexican boy to help him get a county-funded liver transplant.

The motion was filed because the Los Angeles County counsel’s office believes that the court did not know all the facts when it appointed a guardian for Armando Vargas, the victim of a chronic liver disease, said Daniel Mikesell, a principal deputy county counsel.

“Basically, if a child comes to this country for the sole purpose of obtaining medical care, they are not eligible for this program and there is a question in our minds if this is that case,” said Children Services Director Frank Rico.

“We and our clients (Children Services) have expressed some concern about this guardianship. We don’t think the facts show that the child has indeed come to this country to establish citizenship,” Mikesell said.

“We are not preventing the operation. The question is whether the taxpayer money should be expended for this child’s care. We have rules and regulations that the local CCS is obliged to follow,” he said.

“I’m furious,” said Susan Carpenter-McMillan, spokeswoman for the Right to Life Committee, the group advocating Armando’s right to an operation. “We’re talking about a child’s life, not issues, not politics. We’re talking about a life.”

Carpenter-McMillan said that when the Right to Life group went to CCS officials two months ago, they answered all their inquiries.

“CCS told us to get him permanent residency, so we got him a guardian. They wanted to see the family bank account from Mexico and they wanted to see a passport. . . . We complied with everything they wanted.

“We did everything that they (CCS) told us to do and now they say (the guardianship) is a sham,” said Carpenter-McMillan. “It appears to me that they are more serious than I thought about letting little Armando die.”

Discharged from UCLA

Armando was discharged from UCLA Medical Center last Thursday in fair condition, said medical center spokesman Mike Byrnes. He is now living somewhere in Los Angeles with an anonymous guardian and his parents, Graciela and Armando Vargas Sr.

Armando’s liver transplant could cost from $150,000 to $400,000, said Jeff Otten, associate director of the UCLA Medical Center.

Otten said the hospital’s policy in such a situation is to await clarification from CCS or Medi-Cal before any surgical procedure is taken.

“We have to make sure the reimbursement is adequate and maintain some prudence in management of this activity,” Otten said. “. . . We cannot afford any further flexibility with respect to our financial clearance.”

Otten said Medi-Cal pays about half the cost of a liver transplant. UCLA does about 140 liver transplants a year of which 20%-25% are paid for by Medi-Cal.

“If we have to make one exception, we have to make hundreds. We get phone calls and requests from people who do not have insurance or other financial coverage requesting that they be transplanted,” Otten said. “This is a rather prevalent disease. . . . You’re opening up the floodgates. We do as many as we can, but we have to maintain the program.”