I have used this space more than once to focus on healthcare and prisons, with a particular emphasis on Wellpath. The Tennessee-based company touts itself as “the premier provider of localized, high-quality compassionate care to vulnerable patients in challenging clinical environments.” In plain English, that means they are a for-profit…
Last month I wrote about the problems plaguing Portland’s Unity Center for Behavioral Health. According to The Oregonian, serious reports of neglect and abuse began to emerge almost as soon as the facility opened in 2017. In short order there was evidence of at least 16 incidents that ought to…
A recent investigation by The Oregonian found “that county employees had received reports of serious neglect or abuse” at what the newspaper describes as the city’s “premier mental health facility,” the Unity Center for Behavioral Health in Northeast Portland. These reports began to come in “within months of its opening…
A recent story published by Courthouse News Service details a legal case in Arizona that deserves to be making headlines nationwide. There has been a lot of media coverage over the last few years of the abuses of the private, for-profit prison industry. The Arizona case, however, highlights what can…
A recent article in The Oregonian documented efforts by Disability Rights Oregon to convince “the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office to transfer jail inmates undergoing mental health crises to the city’s new emergency psychiatric care center if needed.” As the article outlines, the Northeast Portland facility recently opened, offering “a long-awaited…
The sentencing this week of a former Kaiser Permanente nurse on charges of sexually abusing five women under his care should remind us all of the responsibilities hospitals, nursing homes, other care facilities and their staffs have toward their patients. According to The Oregonian the 38-year-old man “pleaded guilty in…
The decision by Portland police to charge a 34-year-old nursing assistant with the rape of an 87-year-old nursing home patient is drawing new attention to sexual assault issues in Oregon nursing homes, hospitals and other facilities that care for the elderly. According to a recent article in The Oregonian, a…
The Oregonian reports that a Beaverton nurse was allowed to continue working with patients while under investigation for sexual misconduct on the job and allegedly committed a similar offense during that time. The incident, if the facts are as reported, raises serious questions about how the nurse’s employer, Kaiser Permanente,…
Following up my blog last month about the scandal and abuses at the Give Us This Day foster care center I am pleased to report that the Oregon legislature is making progress to address the important issue of injuries to children in Oregon’s foster care system. As reported recently by…
This blog often highlights things that go wrong – instances of negligence and irresponsibility at the end of which someone gets hurt and our legal system is called upon to offer justice, and some measure of solace, to victims and their families. An article that appeared in The Oregonian this…