The Oregon Business Model: Keep Everyone Mentally Ill As Long As Possible!

Oregon is known for keeping their mentally ill patients for as long as it is conceivable, possibly indefinitely!

The mentally ill clients represent ‘revenue’ for the State as well as ‘heads’ to be counted in order to receive federal funding … all for the Oregon facilities’ programs, as well as keeping many people employed including their vacations, pensions and health insurance costs.

Jacob’s having a TBI can be counted as a bonus, in that he is definitely worth more to Oregon, more funding can be applied for.

Noteworthy is the fact, even though Jacob’s medical records contain many entries in regard to his TBI, and are filled with notations that speak of treating his traumatic brain injury, nothing of the kind is afforded to him, because none of the staff, wherever Jacob was kept, had either the training or education or even a basic understanding of Jacob’s medical disability, namely TBI. (Traumatic Brain Injury)

Overmedicating was the call of the day, it is the kind of treatment that Oregon knows best and earns the highest profit in the shortest amount of time.

In order to stay true to Oregon’s business model of ‘getting a lot’ and ‘giving as little as possible’ Jacob’s TBI treatment has been denied him.

Oregon State Hospital has been in the crosshairs of federal civil-rights investigators since mid-2006, and there appears to be no end in sight to the long-running inquiry.

In fact, federal lawyers at the forefront of the investigation made two recent trips to Salem to gather more information about Oregon's main mental hospital and other aspects of the state's mental-health system, email correspondence obtained by the Statesman Journal shows.

The first visit occurred in February when lawyers from the U.S. Department of Justice met at the state hospital with a number of patients to hear their concerns and complaints.

Patients vented frustration about long stints of hospitalization and restrictive release practices that keep patients cooped up on psychiatric wards after therapists have found them fit to be released.

During the second trip to Salem, visitors from the U.S. Department Of Justice spent three days, April 6-8, conducting interviews with at least 10 state mental health administrators.

The talks took place in a conference room at the Commerce Building.

Heading up the federal team was Robert Koch, a trial attorney for the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. DOJ.

Much of the correspondence focused on scheduling matters and other arrangements for the two recent visits.

This June will mark the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the federal investigation of the state hospital and other mental health facilities.

In 2008, the feds threatened legal action if Oregon did not fix numerous defects in patient care and hospital conditions.

Despite reform-minded efforts, the federal Justice Department put the state on notice in November that it was widening the investigation, digging into concerns beyond patient care and hospital conditions.

The expanded investigation has been scrutinizing how long patients stay at Oregon State Hospital, the availability of mental health services for people coming out of the hospital and those at risk of being institutionalized, and whether the state is complying with federal law, which requires that government dollars support the most appropriate care for people with disabilities in the least restrictive settings.

Mental health advocates maintain that Oregon spends too much on hospitalization for people with mental illnesses and not enough on community programs.