Federal officials announced this week that construction is now complete on a new 20-bed hospital space inside the Lompoc prison complex, where an outbreak of coronavirus has infected scores of inmates and staff. Scheduled to open May 6, the Hospital Care Unit (HCU) is located on the first floor of a decommissioned military uniform factory in a medium-security area of the complex.
The HCU, the Bureau of Prisons said in a prepared statement, comprises 10 double-occupancy treatment rooms, a patient intake area, nurses’ station, pharmacy, and biohazard room, as well as a guard post and staff lounge. “The concept to build the hospital began on April 9, after the institution’s first positive COVID-19 inmate case was identified on March 31,” the statement reads. “Based on the size of the inmate population, the epidemic curve projected a high volume of cases, which would require a level of hospitalization the local community would be unable to meet.”
The exact number of inmates and staff sickened by coronavirus remains an elusive figure, as the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and Santa Barbara County health officials have offered conflicting data since the start of the outbreak. Citing security considerations, the BOP has also prohibited regional hospitals from disclosing how many inmates and staff have been, or are currently, in their care.