Measure Awaits Governor’s OK : State Budget Provides for UCI Medical Units

The state budget passed by the Legislature this week would assure the construction of two major buildings at the UCI Medical Center in Orange, UC Irvine officials said Friday.

The budget, now before Gov. George Deukmejian, includes about $14.6 million to build a psychiatric inpatient facility at the hospital. Another $1 million is earmarked for equipment for a new outpatient cancer center at the hospital.

Gov. George Deukmejian is expected to leave the funds in the budget because he has consistently supported development of the UCI Medical Center building projects during the past three years, UCI officials said.

Michelle Claridge, a senior analyst at UCI, said Friday that Deukmejian’s budget last year provided about $9 million for building the cancer center. The $1 million in the new budget would provide the equipment, she said.

Construction of the four-story, 56,500-square-foot cancer center is expected to start in December, and completion is targeted for June, 1990, Claridge said. The building will house all of the center’s facilities for outpatient treatment of cancer patients, she said.

Construction of a three-story, 81,000-square-foot building for psychiatric patients would start in June, 1989, and be completed in June, 1991, university officials said.

Claridge said UCI Medical Center will ask the Legislature to include in future budgets money to equip the psychiatric facility.

The new psychiatric facility would replace an outmoded one, Claridge said. The old building, completed in 1959, will be converted to other uses. That building has 93 inpatient beds, and the new one will have 92, Claridge said. But because the old building was outmoded, many of the beds were unusable.