Man’s Life at Stake in ‘Political Football’ : Medicine: A destitute patient needs a heart transplant. UCI Medical Center wants money to provide it. In frustration, its private auxiliary has turned to Hoag Hospital for help.

The private money-raising auxiliary of UCI Medical Center is so frustrated with its own hospital’s demands for money before providing a heart transplant to a destitute man that it has turned to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach for help.

“We don’t want to have patients die on us while we’re trying to raise funds to save their lives,” John Stroh, president of the auxiliary, said Thursday.

The auxiliary has been desperately trying to raise money so that Hector Bojado, 29, of Anaheim, can be considered for the operation. Originally, the organization was scrambling for money for two people, Bojado and Stephen Regalado, 23, of Mission Viejo, who also was poor and had no insurance. But Regalado died without ever making a transplant waiting list.

The situation with Bojado is the same, “and in the meantime we’re playing this political football,” Stroh said.

“The whole premise on why we’re doing this is to get a heart for Hector and funding for similar patients. (Although) Hector is home now, and he’s stable, tomorrow he may be back in the hospital, and by the weekend he could be critical,” Stroh said.

The medical center has said it will not put Bojado on a transplant list until it is guaranteed a $50,000 deposit, an additional $30,000 in 90 days and $70,000 more within two years, said Jim Curran, an auxiliary member. The organization has only been able to raise $50,000 so far.

So the auxiliary turned to Hoag Hospital to see if it will take Bojado, Curran said. A spokesman for Hoag confirmed Thursday that negotiations are under way.

Stroh acknowledged that the decision to scout for another hospital was “very unusual.” But he said it was necessary because Bojado has no medical insurance and could die unless he receives a transplant.

Contacting Hoag signaled mounting frustration felt by auxiliary officers during negotiations with medical center administrators on the sensitive transplant issue. Two weeks ago, after the auxiliary could not raise a $50,000 deposit for Regalado, he died.

Mary Piccione, UCI Medical Center’s executive director, said through a spokeswoman that 18 months ago, when the medical center began doing heart transplants, the hospital did three of them free and absorbed the cost. Such operations, without major complications, can cost $150,000 to $180,000.

“However, we are no longer able to extend this opportunity to other potential transplant patients who do not possess a clear source of funding,” Piccione said. “It is well known that UCIMC is itself in critical financial condition.”

When the auxiliary scrambled to raise the deposit for Regalado, the medical center had indicated it would perform the operation for a deposit of $80,000, and did not insist on additional money later. One surgeon told the organization that the operation, provided the medical center’s staff were to donate its time, could be done for only a $50,000 deposit, Curran said.

A subsequent public appeal raised only $32,000 for the two patients in three days. It was then that the medical center insisted on the guarantee of payments after the operations as well as the deposits, Curran said. He said the auxiliary believes the hospital should accept a $50,000 deposit with no demands for future payment.

Soaring medical costs have prohibited publicly financed hospitals such as the medical center from underwriting heart transplants and other major operations, said Elaine Beno, a medical center spokeswoman.

Beno said her understanding is that UCI is willing to perform Bojado’s operation for an $80,000 deposit. She said she did not know about the requirement for additional money after the operation. In regard to the different figures stated by the auxiliary, she said she has not been in on any of the discussions between the auxiliary and hospital officials.

Once a deposit is secured, Bojado will be put on a priority transplant list with the Regional Organ Procurement Agency based at UCLA. There are 22 patients on the list, and 19 more on a similar list at the Southern California Organ Procurement and Preservation Center in Los Angeles.

Until now, Stroh and other auxiliary officers have been reluctant to speak out publicly. Stroh said the auxiliary understands that the medical center cannot underwrite all surgical procedures for indigent patients without going bankrupt.

“To our knowledge,” Piccione said, “hospitals around the country require some guaranteed funding prior to this kind of elective surgery. UCIMC now follows this same practice. If other hospitals are able to evaluate and accept potential heart transplant patients without adequate funding, we applaud their ability to do so.”

Curran said he spoke with Mary Jane Jones, Hoag’s heart transplant coordinator, who told him that the private hospital would consider a heart transplant for Bojado if it became absolutely necessary.

Pam Bolen, a spokeswoman for Hoag, confirmed that transplant operation discussions have taken place and that “such an operation has not been ruled out.”

While the auxiliary is prohibited by law from raising money for any one patient, Stroh said that most members have been especially moved by the plight of Regalado and Bojado.

Bojado, who was born in Colima, Mexico, has no nearby family. He has been employed as a plastics molder but only worked for two months at his last place of employment and consequently did not qualify for health coverage.

Dr. Richard Ott, UCI Medical Center’s director of cardiac transplantation, has diagnosed Bojado’s condition as a “downward spiral.” Bojado has been released from the hospital, but doctors and auxiliary members remain highly concerned. Regalado had been allowed to go home but then had to be rushed back to the hospital when his condition deteriorated. He died about a week later.

“Our point is,” Stroh said, “that if the hospital is pretty much set on us raising this $150,000 . . . it’s going to take a long time raising that money. Who knows where Hector can be at that point?”

Those interested in making contributions can make checks payable to UCI Medical Center Auxiliary, in care of the Stephen Regalado Memorial Trust Fund, 101 City Drive, Route 100, Orange, Calif. 92668. For more information, contact the auxiliary at (714) 634-5541.