Oregon State Hospital in Salem (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
The Oregon State Hospital campus in Salem temporarily closed a unit for nearly a week after a worsening staff shortage left too few employees available to care for patients.
A July 7 email obtained by Salem Reporter from Sara Walker, the hospital’s interim chief medical officer, said the hospital has a 20% vacancy rate in nursing positions and has had to mandate overtime for some employees multiple days in a row just to keep legally required staffing minimums in place.
Walker’s email said on a typical day, about 20% to 30% of employees scheduled to work aren’t showing up.
“Our workforce is tired and although they remain dedicated, we cannot sustain like this indefinitely. This morning, in particular, we had 42 fewer people scheduled to work for swing shift today than are required by our base staffing numbers and patient precautions,” Walker’s email read.
Walker said the hospital would immediately close the Butterfly 3 unit and transfer its 14 patients to other units. Employees on Butterfly 3 were assigned to other units that were short-staffed.
The hospital operates a main campus in Salem and a second in Junction City. The Salem hospital cares for about 500 Oregonians with severe mental illnesses who are court-ordered there to undergo treatment, typically as part of a criminal court case.
The staffing shortage comes as the hospital is again under state investigation following a complaint of employees being injured on the job.
Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late March received a complaint stating, “Throughout the facility multiple times a week, violent altercations between employees and patients are taking place. As a result, employees are needing to seek medical care for their injuries. Management does not implement any kind of solutions to mitigate these incidents and prevent workplace injuries from these attacks,” according to Aaron Corvin, department spokesman.
Corvin said an investigation into the complaint began in April 2022 and is ongoing. The agency will not publicly release more information until the investigation is closed, he said.
The hospital faced an OSHA citation in 2020 after a late 2019 complaint from an employee alleging frequent assaults by patients and a lack of solutions to address the problem. The state workplace safety agency found the violation was serious and fined the hospital $2,000.
A Salem Reporter investigation in October 2021 found the hospital had not implemented most of the corrections it told state officials were in the works to reduce violence.
Since early 2021, the hospital has routinely struggled to maintain adequate staffing in the face of high rates of absence caused by Covid and leave, employee turnover and difficulty hiring for open positions.
Hospital administrators twice last year took the unprecedented step of calling in the Oregon National Guard to help care for patients. The latest deployment ended at the end of June.
A 20% vacancy rate means 283 nursing positions are open at the hospital, said Tim Heider, Oregon Health Authority spokesman. The health authority is the hospital’s parent agency.
He said maintaining required staffing levels in Salem means having 432 nursing employees working.
Factors driving higher rates of employee absence include people calling out sick, family leave, Covid exposures and staff injuries, Heider said.
The Butterfly 3 unit is reopening Wednesday morning for admissions, he said.
The hospital is also allowing some units to run below required staff levels on a case-by-case basis, Walker’s email said. They’re also having medical employees reevaluate current orders requiring some patients to have closer supervision. Those orders require about 100 daily shifts to sustain, Walker’s email said.
Non-nursing employees are also able to pick up shifts on nursing units, Walker’s email said. Hospital managers are discussing other solutions with health authority and Oregon Department of Justice leaders, Walker said.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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