PORTLAND, Ore. — A new watchdog report says some Portland-area hospitals are criminalizing mental illness.
Health care providers are calling police about troubled people trespassing, and many of those people are ending up in jail instead of in treatment, the report says.
Disability Rights Oregon looked at calls to Portland police from six hospitals: Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center, Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, Providence Portland Medical Center, Oregon Health and Science University, Adventist Health Portland and Unity Center for Behavioral Health.
Of the 142 calls about trespassing or an “unwanted person,” 42 involved people who clearly showed or expressed a mental health condition.
In many cases, the hospitals wanted police to remove and arrest the people involved, not because they were causing a disturbance but because they were asking for help and refusing to leave.
“To criminalize that behavior just feels like a really telling example of how stigmatizing mental health conditions still are, even in our health care settings, and how far we have to go in our community in terms of decriminalizing mental illness,” said Sarah Radcliff, an attorney with Disability Rights Oregon.
The report also found that people who were homeless and people of color were more likely to be arrested for trespassing at a hospital.
Disability Rights Oregon says it wants to see a change in procedures dealing with people in marginalized communities, including those with mental health problems, along with more resources to make those procedures work at hospitals and long-term help from providers for housing and other care.
Legacy Health released the following statement in response to the report:
“Our services are available to anyone seeking medical and/or behavioral health services. Our priority is to provide a safe environment for patients, families, and visitors in order for staff to provide the care that is needed. Anyone who is a threat to safety, or anyone acting in a way contrary to a safe, healing environment by demonstrating violent or unruly behavior will be asked to leave the premises, and a trespass may be issued.”