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California Health Care moving work crew inmates to new mental health wing

Record (Stockton, CA) - 4/16/2014

April 16--STOCKTON -- The state prison health care system hasn't resumed admitting patients to the California Health Care Facility on the outskirts of the city, but the process has started to move in healthy, work-crew inmates to a new wing planned to house mentally ill inmates.

Following reports of unsanitary conditions and inadequate medical care at the facility, court-appointed medical receiver Clark Kelso halted the intake of patient inmates. That was before the completion of the new Facility E, which will board inmates who are too mentally ill to live with the general population.

"We're continuing to work with the receiver to resolve all those issues," said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Thornton said the state corrections department is targeting the end of June to resume medical admissions.

The California Health Care Facility prison is the largest center of its type in the nation, built to house 1,700 of the state's sickest prisoners.

The newly renovated Facility E, which used to be the Dewitt Correction Annex, originally was scheduled to start accepting patient inmates in early April.

About 90 general population inmates will be transferred there by the end of the week.

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