Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog
Oregon State Police are reopening their investigation into the Salem Hospital Death last week of a patient at the Oregon State Hospital. Moises Perez, 42, was found dead in his bed earlier this month, according to a report in the Salem Statesman-Journal.
A county medical examiner initially ruled that Perez’s Oregon hospital death was from natural causes, but late last week the authorities announced they would be revisiting the issue. “We are going to look at it a little bit more and make sure that we haven’t missed anything,” a state police spokesman told the Statesman-Journal. The spokesman added that the move is “not necessarily that uncommon,” but the paper noted it came only in the wake of pressure from mental health advocates and some hospital patients around the state.
Though Perez was a convicted criminal – he had been confined at the state mental hospital since 1995 when he was convicted of murder but judged insane – the Oregon hospital death raises questions about conditions and treatment that are unrelated to the crimes that had landed Perez in a mental institution. Patient advocates expressed satisfaction with the state’s decision to reopen the case.
Hospital deaths often merit special attention, and are a circumstance in which consultation with a Salem wrongful death lawyer is often a prudent move once a family’s initial period of grieving is past. An Oregon hospital death attorney can help determine whether a tragic Oregon hospital death might also have been avoidable and recommend a course of action for surviving family members.
Salem Statesman-Journal: State hospital death receives second look
