Skip to main content
The Oregon chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness plans to intervene in the ongoing legal battle between the state of Oregon and its major hospital systems over who is responsible for treating severely mentally ill patients. The paperwork will be filed within the next few weeks, says the nonprofit’s executive director, Chris Bouneff.
The hospital systems—Legacy, Providence, PeaceHealth and St. Charles—filed suit in 2022 accusing the state of failing to provide sufficient placement options for people with mental illnesses who have been involuntarily committed for treatment. The state psychiatric hospital is perennially full, forcing community hospitals to shoulder the burden instead, the lawsuit argues.
“We support the hospital’s position,” Bouneff says. “They’re demanding that the state do something.”
The lawsuit was initially thrown out, and then revived earlier this year by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
At issue was the question of whether the hospital systems had legal standing to advocate on behalf of people who had been civilly committed. A lower court suggested Disability Rights Oregon, another advocacy group, was the better suited to do so. But the appeals court called that conclusion “clearly erroneous” since DRO was representing another group of patients competing for scarce beds—people charged with crimes but too mentally ill to stand trial— in another lawsuit against the state.
“We’re going to intervene to be that voice,” says Bouneff.
The lawsuit is now back in court in Portland and lawyers on behalf of the hospital systems have amended their original complaint, with new allegations. They’re now accusing the state of violating a host of additional anti-discrimination laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 2010 Affordable Care Act.