The death of an inmate earlier this week at San Bernardino County’€™s West Valley Detention Center marked the ninth at the Rancho Cucamonga jail in the past year, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said Tuesday.

All of the deaths were related to inmate medical issues, sheriff’€™s spokeswoman Jodi Miller said.

“€œTo date, nine medical related deaths per year is below average for correction facilities of similar size and function,” Miller said. She said there also was one medically related inmate death this year at the Central Detention Center in San Bernardino.

Shaun Greene, 39, of Glendora, lost consciousness and slipped out of his wheelchair while eating lunch in the medical housing unit at West Valley shortly after noon Sunday. He was taken to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fontana, where he died an hour later, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’€™s Department.

Although Greene’€™s cause of death has yet to be determined and an autopsy and toxicology are pending, the death appears related to medical issues, Miller said.

“There is nothing to suggest anything other than it was a medical,” Miller said Tuesday in an e-mail. She said the law precluded her from disclosing Greene’€™s medical conditions.

Greene, who was arrested by Fontana police Dec. 4 on suspicion of assault with a firearm, terrorist threats, and being under the influence of a controlled substance, suffered several pre-existing medical conditions. He was first taken to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton for two days to be examined by doctors due to his medical conditions, then booked into the jail’€™s medical housing unit Dec. 6, Miller said.

“€œHe was being monitored, seeing medical staff, and receiving treatment for his known medical conditions while in custody,” Miller said.

Greene’s death reignited concerns over the quality of medical, mental health and dental treatment inmates are receiving at the jail.

In February, the Berkeley-based prisoner advocacy legal center Prison Law Office filed a class action lawsuit against San Bernardino County on behalf of two inmates, George Topete and Zachery Shovey, alleging treatment for the roughly 6,000 inmates at West Valley and the county’s three other jails is so “deficient that it is harming the people it aims to serve.”

The other three jails include the Central Detention Center, the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore, and the High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto.

The federal lawsuit was refiled Nov. 18 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, dropping Topete and Shovey as the plaintiffs and adding four new ones: Rahshun Turner, Monique Lewis, Jaime Jaramillo and Joshua Mills. A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 23, when the judge will rule on a motion requesting class-action certification, said Donald Specter, an attorney and director of the Prison Law Office.

Topete and Shovey were dropped from the lawsuit because they are no longer in custody, Specter said Tuesday.

In its answer to the allegations filed Dec. 5 in federal court, the county denied all the allegations, and stated it is implementing a kiosk system in the jails that will permit inmates to request health services directly and electronically.

Specter said he will be meeting with sheriff’s officials next week to continue talks about improving inmate conditions at county jails, conditions that have prompted more than six federal lawsuits. The talks have spanned two years. And while some progress has been made and the county has been cooperative, Specter said things have progressed too slowly.