One week before Kenneth Hass died in Oregon State Hospital, a staffer filed a complaint with her bosses about the way the 25-year-old from Lane County was treated.
That same staffer was demoted from her leadership role about two months after Hass died in a feces-filled seclusion room at the state-run psychiatric hospital in Salem, according to her testimony to a grand jury convened by Marion County District Attorney Paige Clarkson. That account is among the examples of staffers sharing their concerns and fears about retaliation at the hospital in sworn testimony contained within the 55-page grand jury report Clarkson released Wednesday, Sept. 30.
The report is the result of a six-month inquiry that heard 47 hours of testimony from about 40 witnesses, including a former patient, current and past staffers and others who work closely with the hospital, which can hold about 600 patients. As the district attorney in Marion County, Clarkson has the authority to convene a grand jury to investigate conditions at Oregon State Hospital in Salem and other state-run facilities in that county…