On Tuesday, the Oregon House Human Services Committee held a four hour hearing about Oregon State Hospital.  Witnesses included administrators, workers, a resident, a former resident, a family member, the state's lawyer and a panel of advocates including Beckie Child from Mental Health America of Oregon, Chris Bouneff from NAMI and me.  Our panel recommended three things that the state should do:

1. Agree to a court-enforceable agreement to fix OSH.
2. Stop all efforts to build a new state hospital in Junction City.
3. Reform how people go into the hospital and get out, particularly from the criminal courts.

We pointed out that we cannot afford the money to run a new hospital (about $220 million per year) and have not been able to fix OSH on our own.  We said that Oregon must learn how to use precious state hospital beds more effectively and stop asking administrators and staff to be both a hospital and a prison (two incompatible tasks).

I testified that I wanted to be hopeful that Oregon could fix OSH without outside oversight, but experience told us otherwise.  I noted that DRO has sued OSH five times since 1992 in order to force improvements, but the problems don't go away. 

Committee Chair Carolyn Tomei asked me to send her a written summary of those cases.  I did, and now I'm sharing it with you.

Charles B. vs. Concannon:  A Class Action filed in 1992 on behalf of forensic patients and patients with developmental disabilities.  A Settlement Agreement was reached in 1994 which required that all patients have an individual treatment plan, a baseline assessment, a comprehensive assessment, appropriate referrals, education programs, psychosocial rehabilitation, sex offender treatment, and vocational services.  Staff were to receive 80 hours of core curriculum training.  Professional staffing levels were to be adequate, movement restriction and seclusion & restraint policies were to be changed, and patients with cognitive disabilities were to be assessed and placed in appropriate alternative settings.

Miranda B. vs. Kulongoski:  A Class Action filed in 2000 on behalf of civilly committed patients in Oregon’s state hospitals.  A Settlement Agreement was reached in 2004 which required DHS to develop 75 new licensed placements and/or supported housing, discharge at least 31 class members, begin discharge planning upon hospital admission, refer any patient who was not placed within 90 of being ready-to-place to an Extended Care Management Unit for assistance in placing, develop a fund to assist with exceptional barriers to placement which would start with $1,500,000, and develop a process to monitor vacancies in community facilities.

Bartow and Oregon Advocacy Center vs. DHS:  A Wrongful Death action filed in 2002 on behalf of a patient who died during a take-down and an unsafe conditions claim on behalf of all OSH patients.  The case was settled in 2004 for $200,000 in damages plus an agreement to place defibrillators on wards and update restraint training to include information on positional asphyxia and de-escalation techniques.

Oregon Advocacy Center vs. Mink:  A Class Action filed in 2002 on behalf of defendants who had been found unable to aid and assist in defense of criminal charges who languished in local jails awaiting transfer to OSH.  Following trial and appeal, OSH was ordered to admit defendants from jail who are found unable to aid and assist in their defense within seven days of such finding.

Harmon vs. Fickle:  2004 Class Action on behalf of forensic patients at OSH. A Settlement Agreement was reached in 2006 that required OSH to hire 30 new professional staff, DHS to hire 4 new community placement developers, OSH to increase the staff to patient ratio from under 1.10 to 1.82, and DHS to create 71 new community placements (at least 30 being intensive case management slots) in addition to 128 planned placements for forensic patients.