A federal judge last week directed the Oregon State Hospital to admit two patients who alleged the hospital violated their constitutional rights by delaying their admission due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The two men had been found guilty except for insanity for crimes in Multnomah County earlier this year and ordered to the psychiatric facility. Instead, they spent the intervening months in the county jail.
Jarod Bowman and Joshawn Douglas-Simpson on Nov. 15 sued state hospital Superintendent Dolly Matteucci and Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen, alleging that they have been in the Multnomah County Detention Center for more than six months without adequate mental health treatment.
U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez granted the patients’ motion for a temporary restraining order, giving the hospital 14 days to admit the two men.
As of Monday, both patients had been transferred to the state hospital, OSH spokesperson Aria Seligmann said.
Two days after the court decision, Oregon State Hospital announced it had opened a new unit at its Junction City campus last week and that it will open another early next year, adding 48 new beds and more than 100 staff positions over the course of a few months.
The first unit will primarily treat patients who have been found guilty except for insanity, including patients who will be transferred from the Salem campus.
The hospital has been scrutinized this year for its practice of delaying admissions — first for patients found unable to aid and assist in their own defense at trial and now for guilty except for insanity patients. About 95% of the hospital’s patients are committed for one of those two reasons.
The lawsuit referred to a 2002 court order that required the hospital to admit patients no more than seven days after they’ve been found unable to participate in a trial.
“The Ninth Circuit has held that ‘committed persons must be provided with mental health treatment that gives them a realistic opportunity to be cured or improve the mental condition for which they are confined,” the lawsuit says. “Lack of funds, staff or facilities cannot justify the State’s failure to provide such persons with the treatment necessary for rehabilitation.”
In May 2020, Judge Michael Mosman modified the nearly 20-year-old order, suspending that seven-day requirement so the hospital could limit admissions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the advocacy group Disability Rights Oregon has pressed the court and the hospital to resume timely admissions of the so-called “aid and assist” patients. In September, Mosman ruled that the hospital had until Dec. 3 to stop slowing admissions and resume following the long-standing court order.
The state hospital operates two facilities, one in Salem and one in Junction City. The Junction City campus, which opened in 2015, never received full funding until this year, when the Oregon Legislature allocated $31 million over two years to fund two new units.
—Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR