Local News in Brief : Countywide : Grand Jury Deplores Lack of AIDS Hospices

The Orange County Grand Jury on Tuesday deplored the lack of AIDS hospices in the county and recommended that the Board of Supervisors take a “leadership role” in helping to establish such a facility.

The grand jury, in a report released Tuesday, also recommended that supervisors review a hospice program in Los Angeles “with an eye toward” establishing a similar program in Orange County.

Morris Spatz, a grand juror who helped prepare the report, said the second recommendation refers to a hospice established last year by a private organization in a former tuberculosis hospital near Dodger Stadium, which receives county reimbursement payments of up to $400,000 annually.

Spatz said the grand jury is asking supervisors to approve a resolution supporting the work of a committee of medical and lay people who have been trying for nearly 2 years to raise money to establish the county’s first 24-hour, nonprofit AIDS hospice.

“It’s ridiculous that people who can’t afford private care at $300 and $400 a day are dying in poverty and neglect,” Spatz said. “Our main concern is to have a place where people can die with some dignity.”

The only place outside a hospital in Orange County offering residential care for dying AIDS patients is a privately operated Laguna Beach nursing home that has set aside 18 beds for terminally ill people. Home care for AIDS patients is offered by the Visiting Nurses Assn. and other organizations.

As of last year, 923 cases of AIDS had been reported in the county. Of those, 539 had resulted in death.