Hospital Will Continue Leasing Space for Clinic

Saddleback Memorial Hospital will continue leasing space to Dr. Jose Balmaceda, one of three doctors accused in UCI’s fertility scandal, but is ending its management of the Laguna Hills clinic as planned, officials announced Friday.

The agreement comes more than three weeks after Saddleback threatened to cut all ties to the branch office of the Center for Reproductive Health at Saddleback because of allegations of financial improprieties and misuse of fertility drugs at the center’s main office at UCI.

“It is expected that the signing of the lease will assure patients that the same office will be available for their treatment and continuity of their medical care will not be compromised,” Saddleback spokeswoman Jennifer Lefebvre said.

The new lease at the center is set to expire in June, 1997. Saddleback will no longer provide any employees or oversight of the clinic’s operations, Lefebvre said.

Saddleback and its parent company, Memorial Health Services, announced June 8 that they had launched a review of the practice at Saddleback clinic about a week after UCI severed all ties with the doctors. Balmaceda and Drs. Ricardo H. Asch and Sergio Stone are accused by the university of misappropriation of human eggs, research misconduct and financial improprieties. They have denied knowingly engaging in any wrongdoing.

Asch has taken measures to reassure his patients. He sent letters, dated June 28, to former patients at UCI’s Center for Reproductive Health assuring them that “despite events of the last few weeks, every reasonable step has been taken to safeguard and protect your embryos and/or semen.”

The letter cites the “dispute” between the center and UCI, which resulted in closure of the center’s office at the medical center June 2 and, eventually, transfer of the embryos and semen there to California Cryobank in Los Angeles.

According to the letter, the eggs and sperm can be obtained only by written request from patients and one of the fertility clinic doctors. Asch said that patients may either leave the contents where they are or transfer them elsewhere, with five days notice.