Oregon’s Quarantine Laws Get A Needed Update
The Department of Justice must give its “best effort” to notify an individual before quarantining in emergency situations
June 30, 2011—Oregon’s quarantine and isolation laws are rarely used. But when someone has tuberculosis, measles, or another virulently communicable disease, it’s critical that public health officials act quickly to protect the general public’s health.
"These laws don’t get used very often. It's important that they work in the way we need them to," said Shannon O'Fallon, a senior assistant attorney general with the Department of Justice, who provides legal counsel to the Public Health Division. The ability to forcibly quarantine or isolate someone is used as a “last resort,” she added.
Someone is quarantined, or physically separated from other people, if they’ve been exposed to a communicable disease (even if they don’t show symptoms).
Similar to quarantine, “isolation” in Oregon law refers to the physical separation of an individual or group of people who are infected or believed, within reason, to be infected with a communicable disease.
The intent of quarantining or isolating an individual or group of people is to stop the transmission of disease to others. "There has to be some link between the disease and the public health risk it raises," O'Fallon said.
Quarantining or isolating an individual is most often used when someone with a communicable disease, such as tuberculosis, no longer cooperates with the county health department to manage their disease, or might have become resistant to their medications.
In 2007, the Legislature passed House Bill 2185 to update the state’s isolation and quarantine laws. This year’s House Bill 2111, which is awaiting Governor John Kitzhaber’s signature, makes clarifications to that law.
Although O’Fallon describes the changes as technical, she expects them to have a significant impact to ensure "that the law is used as intended."
Three big changes were made. First, the director of the Public Health Division, or the directors of county public health departments, have the authority to issue an emergency order that isolates or quarantines an individual or a group of people. “Reasonable efforts” must be made to notify the individual before the director goes to court to seek an order to quarantine or isolate someone.
The person issuing the order must have probable cause that “a person or group of persons requires immediate detention to avoid a clear and immediate danger to others,” O’Fallon told the Senate Healthcare, Human Services and Rural Policy Committee in May.
Typically, an individual is given prior notice by the court that they’re to be quarantined or isolated. But in cases of an emergency—such as when someone has an extremely communicable disease, such as SARS, the Avian flu that swept through parts of Asia in 2003—“there likely will not be time to give such prior notice,” O’Fallon told the committee.
“The ability to go to court without prior notice is only in emergency situations,” O’Fallon said.
The person could only be quarantined or isolated for 72 hours. At that time, a petition process would be filed with the court determining whether the person should continue to be quarantined or isolated.
Whether someone who’s suspected or known to have a communicable disease can be in the court room during the proceeding is also dealt with in House Bill 2111.
The public health department can request that a quarantined or isolated individual not appear in the courtroom if they have a communicable disease.
The bill specifies that the individual must be able to “fully participate” in the proceedings, and that whatever electronic method is used must allow the individual and the court to communicate, as well as allow the individual to communicate with their legal counsel during the proceeding.
The third change of the bill makes drew the most criticism from civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon.
The bill stipulates that the medical records used by the public health department to justify that a person needs to be quarantined or isolated will be sealed after court proceedings. They will not be public records.
Advocates of doing so state that an individual’s medical privacy could be violated if the records were public. But civil liberties groups, such as the ACLU of Oregon, originally argued that by sealing the records, it may not be known whether the decision to quarantine or isolate someone was made erroneously.
O’Fallon said that section of the law was modeled after laws concerning how someone is civilly committed to the Oregon State Hospital.
Although the bill is uncontroversial and easily passed the House and Senate by wide margins, it got caught up in an attempt by Rep. Jules Bailey (D-Southeast Portland) to amend into it a dead bill that he sponsored, which would have allowed domestic violence programs to use some of their funding to decrease teen dating violence.
When the bill, without that amendment, came back to the House after the Senate’s vote, Bailey was able to convince his colleagues to vote against the new version (which was essentially the same as the original bill). What’s called a “conference committee” was formed to consider the bill, giving Bailey one last chance to get his amendment in.
He was unable to do so, and the House re-passed the bill.
During the conference committee meeting on June 14, Rep. Matt Wand (R-Troutdale), a lawyer, expressed concern that there’s no provision allowing the Legislature to re-examine the law in the future, especially if a court’s ability to quarantine or isolate people without necessarily giving them notice beforehand is abused in a “catastrophic situation.”
“The ability to act quickly is really important,” said Sen. Jeff Kruse (R-Roseburg). “We can keep track of what the performance standards are.”
Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson (D-Gresham), a nurse, said she’d never thought about the due process consequences.
“Being in public health, we’re mostly interested in [cases] that we have to quarantine,” she said. “This is just a discussion that public health needs to have with us on that process.”
Bookmark/Search this post with
Keywords:
- Login or register to post comments
- Email this page
Printer-friendly version
Comments Welcome
If you'd like to submit a comment on any of the stories that appear in The Lund Report, you'll need to become a subscriber and share your name and email address with us.
You can also send us story tips anonymously.
"Oregon’s quarantine and isolation laws are rarely used." "These laws don’t get used very often. It's important that they work in the way we need them to," "The bill stipulates that the medical records used by the public health department to justify that a person needs to be quarantined or isolated will be sealed after court proceedings" - These should all be red flags, that something is wrong with the bill!