Tijuana, México -- The Casa Hogar de San Rafael AIDS hospice has been shut down by city health officials who said it was dirty.

They also objected to the storage of medicine in the refrigerator near food, improper disposal of infectious waste, the presence of pet cats, and the mixing of patients with meningitis with those who did not have that disease.

The facility's patients were transferred to General Hospital, which does not provide anti-HIV drugs.

At the hospice the patients received antiviral treatment from the gay-community-based ACOSIDA clinic, which collects unneeded drugs from patients in the U.S. and gives them out free in Tijuana.

"We don't have medicine, personnel or space to attend to people with AIDS," General Hospital Director Guillermo Lopéz Espinoza said after the transfer. "It's a very complex problem and we prefer that they go to a doctor then return to their homes so that we can dedicate all our resources to saving the lives of people who we know can survive."

The decision to close the hospice was made by city AIDS coordinator Remedios Lozada who appeared at the facility accompanied by ambulances, police officers and reporters, newspapers said.

Lozada said patients' families and AIDS activists had complained about conditions at the building.

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When Velasquez quit, his longtime enemies, José Navarro and Alejandro García, moved in to fill the void. Navarro and García run the ACOSIDA Clinic, AIDS Project Tijuana and Grupo Y Qué¿, which stages Tijuana's pride parade.

At that point, the hospice became another element in the decade-long feud between Velasquez and García/Navarro.

"Armando just ... turned against everyone and tried to keep the place as his own," VelasQuéz said. "The injustice and mistreatment and the abuse at the hospice just goes beyond words to describe."

Velasquez even alleges that Maya withheld medicine from patients if they refused to have sex with him.

"One of the patients there ... told me that whenever he wouldn't have sex with Armando, he would switch the medications until his reactions were so bad that he was in pain and then he would ask him to go and clean up the cat doo in the patio," Velasquez said

Maya appeared shocked when informed of this charge. "Emilio is sick in the head if he's saying these kinds of things," Maya said. "This is not true. ... You know, AIDS patients in México are not like AIDS patients in the U.S. Here they are very deteriorated."

"Oh my God," said Navarro when told of Velasquez' statements. "Emilio said that? You know, this is a political game. It's all about corruption. Emilio wants the control. He wants the power, period."

"The only reason Emilio and Lozada have taken an interest in the hospice now is that there is new AIDS money en route from the state and federal governments and the hospice could become a way to line their pockets," García charged.

Velasquez insists, however: "I've not plotted or schemed on this [closing]. The health department charges against the hospice are true ... and that's why it was shut down."

GayToday attempted to contact Lozada at her office during business hours but her phone was not answered by anyone.

Last Monday, García, Navarro, Maya, members of AIDS Project Tijuana and relatives of the hospice's patients picketed the city health department demanding that the hospice be re-opened as a non-governmental organization with Maya as its director and that Lozada be fired. "She just protects Emilio," García said.

The land for the three-and-a-half-year-old hospice was provided by the Baja California state government and the building was constructed by the city with federal funds. Thereafter little government assistance was offered. The hospice has never had running water because the neighborhood in which it is located does not have water pipes.