Hospital tech. accused of raping patient

ORANGE, Calif., March 17 (UPI) -- An Orange County, Calif., hospital technician was in jail without bail Thursday on suspicion of raping a female patient he was assigned to monitor, police said.

Francisco Ayala Jr., 27, of Anaheim, who worked for St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, was arrested March 9 following an interview with Orange police investigators, Sgt. Dan Adams said.

He was a patient care technician and no longer works for the facility, hospital officials said.

Ayala had been assigned to monitor the unidentified woman, who went to the hospital's emergency room the night before.

Police cited patient-confidentiality laws in declining to specify why she was in the hospital or why she needed supervision, The Orange County Register reported.

Ayala was arrested on suspicion of rape, sodomy and oral copulation, and booked into Orange County jail, Adams said.

The state Department of Public Health also opened an investigation into the incident but provided no further details, the Los Angeles Times reported.