Oregon State Hospital halts admissions after COVID-19 cases
Oregon State Hospital, the state's sole forensic psychiatric facility and the destination for most competency-restoration admissions, halted new admissions after two patients tested positive for COVID-19 in late 2020. The closure directly delayed transfers of jailed defendants who had already been found incompetent and were waiting for a bed.
The pause added a pandemic-specific bottleneck on top of a system already operating under the state's decades-old Mink v. Brown injunction requiring prompt admission — a tension that would later become the subject of academic review.
Source: Oregon State Hospital closes admissions after two patients test positive for COVID-19 — OPB, by Conrad Wilson
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