David Lynch and Kimberly Gourley-Thoma
Lynch is a mental health registered nurse at the Oregon State Hospital and president of AFSCME Local 3925. Gourley-Thoma is president of SEIU Sublocal 392.
The staffing crisis at the Oregon State Hospital, which necessitated calling in the Oregon National Guard for help, was in the works well before the COVID-19 pandemic. Without additional staff in the near term, the crisis will only continue.
Since last November, the hospital has been operating under an emergency plan for providing minimum levels of nursing staff. In the earliest stages of the plan, staff and managers from other departments whose regular duties do not include working with residents on the floor, volunteered for nursing shifts.
In May, as the crisis worsened, the hospital activated the fourth and fifth stages of the plan - calling in untrained staff from other agencies and then the National Guard to fill shifts.
While help is desperately needed, hurriedly trained and inexperienced newcomers working with residents can compromise safety and put an additional burden on existing staff.
What’s more, it has been difficult to maintain the ratio of staff to residents that ensures safety for all. It is not out of the ordinary for staff to be mandated to work overtime – sometimes more than one shift in a row just to meet minimum standards. Not only does this put the workforce at risk of increased injury, but at times, it has forced the hospital to reduce resident services, such as access to certain types of therapies and activities that require extra assistance.
News stories and comments by Oregon Health Authority leaders suggest that the staffing crisis is a result of the pandemic and will resolve once things return to normal. But staffing was an issue prior to the pandemic.
For years, SEIU and AFSCME, which represent mental health technicians, nurses, physicians, psychologists, and other frontline staff at the hospital, have advocated with Oregon State Hospital management for additional full-time positions to help staff the hospital but have been met with strong resistance. Instead of hiring more staff, the hospital has become reliant on overtime and limited duration positions which aren’t sustainable and can wind up being more expensive in the long run.
The state has limited increases in staffing at the hospital assuming more residents will be served in community settings. Unfortunately, community options are not opening up fast enough to keep up with the need and the state hospital continues to remain at maximum capacity. These residents cannot receive the higher level of care they deserve without additional staffing resources.
For now, the Legislature has proposed opening two units at the Junction City campus to increase bed capacity and has set money aside to address staffing concerns in the future. While we’re cautiously optimistic in the process they have set up, we know that any plan to address staffing challenges must do the following:
- Invest in the current workforce. The state hospital cannot continue relying on limited duration positions and mandatory overtime with no plan to achieve more sustainable staffing.
- Invest in resources to open community settings that have clear transparency and accountability for the residents.
State hospital staff have been committed to providing the highest level of care for the residents. But this crisis isn’t temporary, and without the Legislature’s help, it won’t end with the pandemic.
The Legislature will get the chance to invest in this workforce this fall. We hope that they won’t miss that opportunity.