Otay Mesa Detention Center has again failed to report a suspected tuberculosis case to county health officials for several weeks — well past the 24 hours required by state law.
San Diego County issued a notice of noncompliance to the federal facility and warned its private operators from the company CoreCivic that the county could take action with medical licensing boards, which could result in a misdemeanor violation for medical staff.
This isn’t the first time the county has taken issue with lapses in the facility’s reporting of tuberculosis cases; a prior county inspection found that it had failed to disclose two earlier suspected tuberculosis cases for several weeks.
The county, CoreCivic and the Department of Homeland Security have a hearing in early October to try to settle an ongoing lawsuit. The court case led to a judge ordering the county inspection in June.
Supervisor Paloma Aguirre represents the district where the facility is located.
“The guards, nurses and cooks who work there live in Chula Vista, San Ysidro and Imperial Beach and they went home to their families every night for three weeks while this facility sat on a tuberculosis case,” she said. “That’s not a paperwork problem. This is my community’s problem.”
The county’s findings follow an inewsource investigation that identified nearly 70 federal court cases in which detainees raised concerns about health or medical care at Otay Mesa, including disruptions in treatment for chronic illness and, in the case of one diabetic patient, potentially life threatening conditions.