Lompoc prison opens new hospital for coronavirus patients

May 5, 2020

A hospital has been constructed and is set to open Wednesday at the Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex, to deal with the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

Located inside a decommissioned prison factory within the medium-security U.S. penitentiary, the new hospital unit consists of 10 double-occupancy acute care rooms, a patient intake room, a nurses station, pharmacy, biohazard room, linen exchange room and medical supply storage area. It took workers less than four weeks to construct the facility.

The Lompoc complex consists of the penitentiary and the minimum-security Federal Correctional Institute, or prison camp.

In the two Lompoc prison facilities, there are 110 inmates and staffers who have been infected with the virus. At the Lompoc penitentiary, there are 34 coronavirus cases among inmates and 15 among staff, with one death, according to the Bureau of Prisons website. At the prison camp, 51 inmates and 10 staffers have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Initially, the Lompoc complex had the worst outbreak among federal prisons. Now, other prisons have surpassed Lompoc in coronavirus cases.

One such prison is FCI Terminal Island in San Pedro, California, which now has 623 inmate cases and five deaths. A total of 14 prison staffers at FCI Terminal Island have also contracted the virus.