This story has been updated with additional comment from the hospital systems.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness Oregon has thrown its weight behind a suit filed by hospital systems accusing the state of failing to care for people with severe mental illness.
In a filing Monday the nonprofit argued that past rulings have failed to take into account the needs and rights of patients committed to state psychiatric oversight. If a judge agrees, the association representing individuals and families living with mental illness will take on a formal role in the case, representing the interests of civilly committed people.
The group’s goal: to address what it says is the state’s practice of “abandoning individuals who are subject to civil commitment orders in community hospitals,” without appropriate treatment.
In other words, years of litigation over the operation of the Oregon State Hospital may soon have a new player.
Brought by four hospital systems — Legacy Health, Providence Health & Services, PeaceHealth and St. Charles Health — the underlying lawsuit claims the state is, by failing to care for civilly committed patients, saddling hospitals with the costly job.
How did we get here? In 2022, a federal judge responding to gridlock at the state psychiatric facility issued an edict that set discharge deadlines for people accused of crimes who needed treatment before they could “aid and assist” in their defense in court.
Patients facing a misdemeanor were subject to a 90-day deadline for discharge; felonies, six months; and violent felonies one year.
The order temporarily brought the state into compliance with a 2002 federal ruling mandating the psychiatric facility promptly admit defendants found unable to aid and assist. But the order also sparked an immediate and long-term backlash from prosecutors, advocates, counties, local judges and some county health workers.
In its new brief, NAMI Oregon argued that the 2022 order neglected the rights of patients who were civilly committed after being found dangerous to themselves or others.
“(The Oregon Health Authority) also has a constitutional obligation to provide civilly committed individuals ‘restorative treatment,’ which gives them ‘a realistic opportunity to be cured or improve the mental condition for which they were confined,’” according to the filing.
These individuals are admitted to hospitals while in an acute mental health crisis and end up staying because they have nowhere to go, according to the filing.
While the health authority is obligated to provide long-term treatment, “it is not doing so,” the association’s filing states.
A federal judge dismissed an earlier version of the hospitals’ lawsuit last year, saying they legally could not represent the rights of patients. But a panel of federal appeals judges overturned that ruling, paving the way for a new suit by the hospitals earlier this year.
In a prepared statement, the hospital systems said the situation has meant patients are kept for weeks, months and sometimes up to a year in highly restrictive acute care settings without a treatment plan for their long-term needs.
The hospital systems also welcomed NAMI's involvement in the lawsuit.
"NAMI shares our belief that individuals in acute mental health crisis should be able to get the care they need when they need it and in the right treatment setting, and that Oregon is responsible for assuring that happens for people who have been civilly committed to the Oregon Health Authority for treatment," according to the statement.
