Paying Patients

If UCI Medical Center continues operating in the red because it cannot attract private-paying patients, one cannot blame departing chief Dr. Edward J. Quilligan.

The blame squarely falls on former Chancellor Daniel G. Aldrich, Jr., who pulled the land out from underneath the proposed UCI on-campus hospital in Irvine a few years ago, which would have attracted the private-paying patients.

UCI will continue to have problems with its medical center until it gets smart and builds its own modern, on-campus hospital to serve the Orange County patients in need of referrals from the county’s private physicians. Patients will simply not go to that antiquated, ex-county hospital in Orange that now serves as the UCI Medical Center.

In deciding to deny its medical school a modern, on-campus hospital, UCI has made a costly mistake. Don’t expect to see an improvement in its financial picture soon, unless, of course, the taxpayers bail the medical center out once again and cover up the university’s unwise decisions.

JAN D. VANDERSLOOT

Huntington Beach