Mental Health Association of Portland – Oregon's impartial & Independent advocate
From The Oregonian, February 20, 2015 A woman suffering from a severe mental illness sat locked in isolation in a Yamhill County jail for 10 days awaiting a state psychiatric bed. She was suicidal, hearing voices and unable to get proper medication to treat her psychosis. She was never charged with a crime. Three judges […]
By Scott Mendelson, MD, The Huffington Post, April 17, 2013 I am a psychiatrist, and I work at a VA hospital in the state of Oregon. I see veterans on a daily basis in our outpatient mental health clinic and acute psychiatric inpatient unit. All of the veterans I see have had extensive training in […]
By Barbara LaBoe, The Daily News Online, April 6, 2013 The 130-year-old state mental hospital treating accused cop-killer Daniel Armaugh Butts has a storied history, including filming of the 1975 Academy award-winning film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” When it comes to patients like Butts, though, the focus is on their future — and […]
By Chris McKee, KMTR, Feb. 19, 2013 A plea from the Eugene Police Department (EPD) was heard on the floor of the Oregon Senate Tuesday. The department asks for changes in the legal system governing the criminally accused with mental illness nearly two years after the death of Eugene Police Officer Chris Kilcullen. Eugene Police, […]
By Aimee Green, The Oregonian, Feb. 7, 2012 Prosecutor Ryan Lufkin is scrambling for ways to combat the disturbing number of people who die each year from heroin overdoses. Lufkin started documenting the sad circumstances of each of these deaths in Multnomah County and has a binder full: 52 in 2010, and at least 70 […]
Law school professor Art LaFrance wrote this rare and fascinating 153 page survey of the Multnomah County civil commitment court in 1995, but his observations of commitments of many ‘ordinary people’ are quite accurate for today. LaFrance describes the curious character of the court itself, the informality of the court officers, the shabbiness of the […]
By Emily E. Smith, The Oregonian, October 20, 2011 Fourteen years ago, Donn Thomas Spinosa was accused of killing his ex-wife in her Aloha home. He has yet to go to trial. And he probably never will. Since 1997, Spinosa, 57, has been in the state hospital, diagnosed with “severe and persistent” schizophrenia. He walks […]
Editor’s opinion from the Portland Tribune, August 12, 2010 Oregon does its mentally ill citizens no favors when it allows them to place themselves or others in harm’s way rather than be civilly committed — a process that admittedly interferes with their rights, but also forces the mentally ill to receive the treatment they need. […]
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