Overcrowding Concerns Cited : UCIMC Won’t Renew Jail Ward Contract

Concerned about overcrowding and its public image, the UCI Medical Center in Orange will not renew its $2.5-million county contract for operating a jail ward, hospital officials said Sunday.

“If there is one issue that I hear more about from the medical staff, it’s their concern about this contract, both in terms of the beds being used and in terms of private patients who have expressed some discomfort at seeing (jail ward) prisoners in manacles,” Leon Schwartz, UCI Medical Center director, said Sunday.

The hospital’s contract to provide medical care to prisoners will expire Dec. 31. The medical center has two jail wards with five beds each on the fourth floor of its south tower. The wards are guarded by uniformed jail deputies.

Care Since 1974

The hospital has provided care for county prisoners since 1974.

Since 1985, Western Medical Center in Anaheim has also been providing some care to the county’s prisoners, said Wayne D. Schroeder, president of United Western Medical Centers.

Schroeder said United Western has told the county it can provide all of its jail care at less cost.

UCI’s Schwartz said officials exercised a clause in the medical center’s five-year contract--last signed two years ago--that allows either side to cancel the contract on six months’ notice.

“We told the county three months ago that we would be giving them six months’ notice,” Schwartz said. “Then we mailed them official notice at the end of June.”

Private Load Increased

Schwartz said that in the last two years the medical center has seen its private patient load increase while the number of indigent or publicly supported patients was also rising, resulting in a 90% occupancy rate at the 420-bed facility.

Through the years, Schwartz said, some embarrassing incidents--including escapes--have occurred involving private patients and prisoners, he said.

Although there was “very little” likelihood that hospital patients would actually find themselves in the company of handcuffed prisoners, Schwartz acknowledged that private patients have “difficulties” in the hospital’s emergency room and in some diagnostic testing areas that were shared with prisoners.

“We just didn’t have separate facilities for everything here,” Schwartz said.

In preliminary discussions with the county, Western Medical has indicated a willingness to expand its services to replace UCI Medical Center by Jan. 1, 1989, according to Ronald DiLuigi, assistant director at Orange County’s Health Care Agency.

“Our intent is to get a replacement contract with Western Med by Jan. 1,” DiLuigi said Sunday.

The county will probably bypass its normal bidding, he said, in choosing Western Med.

In the past, DiLuigi said, no other hospitals have applied to provide medical care for prisoners.

“We only have six months to reach an agreement,” he said.

Western Med now contracts through the county to provide psychiatric care to indigent residents. “Not every hospital is suitable for providing these services with security in mind,” DiLuigi said.