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Grand jury: UPMC psych clinic didn't notify police

PITTSBURGH — A county grand jury report says workers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's psychiatric clinic have failed to cooperate with police when notified of patient-on-patient assaults, but stopped short of making criminal allegations.

Instead, the grand jury found that officials at Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinic have apparently misconstrued state and federal medical privacy laws as limiting what information they can turn over to police.

A UPMC spokesman has declined to comment on the report publicized Monday. But the hospital network's attorney and the Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. say they're working together on ways for the clinic to cooperate more with law enforcement.

Zappala called for a grand jury after an 8-year-old girl patient was molested by a 14-year-old male patient in a playroom at the clinic last year.