Oregon State Hospital on Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
The Oregon State Hospital is pausing new patient admissions due to a Covid outbreak with 29 patients and 32 employees in the Salem facility testing positive for the virus since Dec. 27.
Hospital Superintendent Dolly Matteucci made the announcement to stakeholders in a letter Tuesday evening.
“We expect that number to rise, given the high-risk exposures involved,” Matteucci wrote.
She said the hospital has now closed three affected units and required patients to isolate in their rooms.
The outbreak comes as the hospital faces ten open contempt proceedings – five in Marion County – brought on by attorneys arguing hospital officials didn’t admit people with mental illnesses to get court-ordered treatment in a timely fashion.
The hospital cares for Oregonians with mental illnesses who are court ordered to receive treatment, often because they have pending criminal charges and can’t participate in their own defense. An admissions pause means more Oregonians awaiting treatment will remain in county jails.
A Jan. 4 letter from Oregon State Hospital Superintendent Dolly Matteucci about the Covid outbreak at the hospital.
Circuit judges have found the hospital and its parent agency, the Oregon Health Authority, in contempt six times in the last three years for not complying with their orders. Contempt isn’t considered a crime under Oregon law but can result in fines and jail time.
In December, the state contracted with an out-of-state expert, Dr. Debra Pinals, to produce a long- and short-term plan to address the hospital’s capacity issues. The help comes as part of a settlement that the state, advocacy group Disability Rights Oregon and Metropolitan Public Defender agreed to Dec. 10 after a 19-year legal battle over admission delays.
“We think this pause makes sense to mitigate the spread of COVID,” said Tina Pinedo, communications director for Disability Rights Oregon, in an email. “That said, Oregon State Hospital should have more aggressively prioritized boosters for patients last month. We believe taking more mitigation steps is key – we’d like them to explore all options to keeping patients safe – like use of (personal protective equipment), and looking at community placements.”
Outbreak details
A little over half of the patients who have tested positive for Covid have symptoms of illness, according to a fact sheet about the outbreak provided by hospital spokeswoman Aria Seligmann. Those symptoms include fever, body aches and malaise.
Two patients were taken to the emergency room due to low blood pressure but have since returned to Oregon State Hospital.
The units with Covid-positive patients are Leaf 3, where about 64% of patients have tested positive, and Bird 1, with 35% testing positive, the fact sheet said. Some positive patients were transferred over the weekend to hospital units intended for Covid isolation and quarantine, but Matteucci said hospital leaders are now keeping patients on the affected units because of the “rapid increase in cases and the significant number of patients on the primary outbreak units who are asymptomatic but COVID-positive.”
Hospital officials have not answered questions about how many patients live on those units, but a typical state hospital unit has about 20 patients.
The Flowers 3 also has three positive patients.
All patients have been tested for Covid. The fact sheet said many patients with Covid have been vaccinated against the virus, but none of those testing positive have received booster doses of vaccine.
“Our infection prevention protocols remain stringent. We have not yet received gene sequencing results, but we expect the outbreak is due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant,” Matteucci said in her letter.
All had been previously offered booster doses, and hospital physicians and nurse practitioners are encouraging patients to get vaccinated or boosted if they previously refused.
Employees on all three units are required to wear increased personal protective equipment, including an N-95 mask, face shield, gown and gloves.
“As with most illness outbreaks, the source is most likely staff. The affected units are not admission units, so the likelihood of a patient bringing the illness into the hospital is very low. This is why booster vaccinations were offered to staff first,” the fact sheet said.
Hospital workers are covered under a state mandate requiring health care workers to either be vaccinated against Covid or seek an exception.
At the Salem campus, 81.2% of employees have Covid vaccinations recorded in the hospital’s infection prevention system, Seligmann said. That number doesn’t include employees who may have been vaccinated outside the hospital and submitted proof to the state’s human resources database, but not to the infection prevention department, she said.
Of eligible employees, 45.8% have received booster vaccines, she said.
Hospital officials first disclosed the outbreak in response to questions from Salem Reporter Monday but did not say how many patients and employees were affected.
Ardeshir Tabrizian contributed reporting.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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