The Oregon Health Authority oversees the Oregon State Hospital in Salem. (Oregon Health Authority)
Disability Rights Oregon wants a federal judge to hold the state in contempt of court for failing to move people from jails into Oregon State Hospital for mental health care within a court-ordered deadline of seven days.
Instead, they wait weeks to enter the Salem-based psychiatric hospital as their health deteriorates. In the past three years, at least two people died after extended waits in jail to enter the hospital and start mental health treatment.
The contempt finding is needed because of Oregon’s failure to comply with a 22-year-old federal court order that requires the hospital to efficiently admit patients from jails who need mental health care before they can face criminal charges, Disability Rights Oregon attorneys argued in a motion filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Portland. The motion asks a judge to order changes in hospital admissions. Those include limiting entry to the hospital when people only face low-level misdemeanor charges and establishing new deadlines for people to exit the hospital when they are ready to be discharged.