Psychiatric Facility Moves Step Closer

Seeking to alleviate a shortage of mental-hospital beds, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday moved closer toward purchasing a private Clairemont hospital to be used as a psychiatric facility.

Despite opposition from some Clairemont residents, the board voted unanimously to set aside $15 million to purchase and renovate the now-closed Clairemont Community Hospital. If, as expected, the supervisors approve the purchase after a public hearing next month, the hospital would be remodeled into a 130-bed hospital to be used predominantly for psychiatric care.

Envisioned as a replacement for a leased county adolescent psychiatric facility in Point Loma, the hospital would be used for short-term drug and alcohol treatment programs as well as for mental care, according to county Health Director J. William Cox. With the Point Loma lease scheduled to expire in 1992, the county last December began negotiating the purchase of the Clairemont hospital from Americare Partners.

Could Become Eyesore

Criticizing the proposal, a handful of Clairemont residents argued that the hospital could become an eyesore that poses security risks for the neighborhood. Referring to plans to surround the hospital’s recreation area with a 15-foot chain link fence topped by barbed wire, one resident complained that it would “look like a jail.”

“It’s not a case of, ‘I don’t want this in my back yard,’ ” resident Linda Maskovich said. “I agree the need is great for a facility. But I don’t agree that this is the location.”

The supervisors, however, said that some of the residents’ concerns could be addressed through landscaping at the hospital, and stressed that the Clairemont hospital affords an opportunity for a relatively rapid, inexpensive partial solution to the county’s mental-hospital bed shortage.

Last year, the county sued the state over that issue, charging that a “woefully inadequate . . . and unfair formula” used to allocate mental-hospital beds has resulted in San Diego County receiving only one-sixth of the beds to which it would be entitled if they were apportioned according to population. That case is still pending, and county officials concede that a decision could be years away.

Because the Clairemont hospital is now classified as a general-care facility, the San Diego City Council also would have to approve its conversion to a predominantly mental hospital.