It may have been 31 years since Milos Forman shot One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, but a new Department of Justice report released yesterday says the hospital is still violating patients’ constitutional right to good care.
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From the O:

Issues included patient-to-patient assault, repeated suicide attempts by patients who were supposed to receive one-to-one monitoring, and questionable use of restraint and seclusion to control violent or suicidal behavior. Other problems, the report said, included improper medication and disease control procedures and inadequate planning that delayed patients’ recovery and discharge.

“After the extensive investigation by the Department of Justice, the Oregon State Hospital is revealed to be nothing but a warehouse,” says Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association.

“If this report is true every employee at the state hospital should submit their resignation immediately,” Renaud continues. “These charges are damning, devastating, and expose irresponsible and inexcusable clinical management. These practice are the diametrically opposite of best practice - criminal practice.”

“As mental health advocates, we’ve heard tales for years about poor medication care, of falls, self-abuse, patient-on-patient injuries, of poor nursing care, poor medical care, and poor discharge planning at the Oregon State Hospital. Tales were true - treatment was replaced by punishment. This investigation confirms decades of mismanagement by thousands of state employees.”

You can download the report at the O’s website. Try not to let it ruin your week/month/year. Hey, at least it won’t ruin your entire life—unless, of course, you’re sufficiently depressed by it to end up in the hospital.