The U.S. Bureau of Prisons is converting California's Terminal Island federal penitentiary into a medical facility for inmates needing regular treatment.
Inmates with chronic conditions such as diabetes, HIV and mental illness will be brought to the prison, bureau spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said. The move returns the prison to a medical role it served shortly after World War II, when it housed the mentally ill.
The bureau is introducing a new medical classification system for its penitentiaries. Prisons will now be rated on a four-point scale, based on the level of care inmates require. Terminal Island is rated a Level 3 and only inmates in fourth-level facilities need more intensive care and are usually bedridden.
During the summer, the bureau began transferring non-Level 3 inmates from the Terminal Island population of almost 1,200. The rollover of prisoners will be a slow process, but the number of inmates isn't expected to decline, Billingsley said.
"Terminal Island was a logical selection for a care Level 3 facility because it already was providing this type of medical assistance to a large number of its population," Billingsley wrote in an e-mail.
Currently, San Pedro-based nonprofit Joint Efforts Inc. provides counseling to inmates through a contract with the U.S. Department of Labor. Agency workers visit the prison or schedule appointments at its Pacific Avenue offices. The group arranges counseling for inmates, refers them to medical treatment and helps ex-convicts integrate back into society by helping them find jobs and transitional housing in halfway houses. Under the new classification, the prison will also arrange medical treatment for inmates for wound care, asthma and cirrhosis.
Health care agencies that have contracts with the prison can send their workers to the facility or bring inmates to their offices to provide care. Many of the inmates are treated as outpatients in the Harbor Area and need daily, weekly or monthly medical visits. The Terminal Island prison has housed inmates since June 1938 with the arrival of 50 men by bus. The Bureau of Prisons acquired the land, then known as Reservation Point, from the Navy.