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Tackling community issues. Celebrating local voices.
Shortly before he died the night of March 18, Kenneth Hass fell and hit his head in a locked seclusion room at Oregon State Hospital. It was the third time in the space of about an hour he had fallen.
A hospital staffer assigned to watch him saw the fall and notified the unit’s registered nurse. As the minutes ticked by, more hospital workers, including the psychiatrist on duty, gathered in an observation room and a hallway and watched as the patient, a 25-year-old from Lane County, lay motionless on the floor. More than four minutes passed before a nurse checked his pulse, a report shows. He had none. Compressions followed, but to no avail.
Hass died alone on the bathroom floor of a locked seclusion room, a space intended for patients to be closely observed for their health and safety. The hospital’s delayed emergency response and other failures to provide safe care, both for Hass and other patients, are detailed in a report compiled by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services…