Today marks the 81st anniversary of the birth of a great civil and human rights champion. Why aren’t we celebrating this day (legal holiday) in Oregon? Although he’s been gone since 1993, the memory of Cesar E. Chavez lives on strongly in the hearts of many Oregonians.
Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin have all seen fit to honor him on this day. I thought “Little Beirut” would surely sound a charge to get this done. After all; the rest of the country seems to think of us as liberal and ground breaking. Is this not really true of us?
Back in New York, where I grew up, I remember the grape and iceberg lettuce boycotts of the 70’s led by Cesar. I was just a kid but recall thinking it was (and still is) important that people came together in unity to make a difference in the lives of others.. People all over the country hitched their wagons to his efforts, and inspired similar actions in Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin. He was truly a great man.
So on this day I want to state that I believe Oregon needs to get off our collective duff to honor Cesar E. Chavez with a legal holiday!
Monday, March 31, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Reasons for an Epiphany
I wrote the other day about an interaction that I witnessed at a Plaid Pantry here in Portland. It involved a man with an apparent developmental disability who was probably living on his own, with little or no support. It wasn’t a very serious problem at the store, but I wrote about my concerns that similarly situated folks face. It’s imperative that these folks have the supports they need! Here’s why... from Vindy.com
Parents get probation for starving child, 3
Published:Saturday, March 29, 2008
By D.A. Wilkinson
A worker in a nutrition program for women and children notified authorities.
LISBON — A “low-functioning” couple may lose custody of their children after authorities found their 3-year-old child weighed just 16 pounds, authorities said. The good news is the child is apparently doing well, authorities added.
The couple was not in a program such as the Columbiana County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities and did not have jobs, said Timothy McNicol, the assistant county prosecutor who handled the case. Daniel R. Clutter Jr., 33, and his wife, Tabitha Lynn Clutter, 24, of Wilbert Avenue, East Liverpool, were sentenced Friday. Each had pleaded guilty earlier to a felony charge of endangering children.
Judge David Tobin of common pleas court ordered them to serve five years’ probation, with the first month served in the Eastern Ohio Correctional Center in Jefferson County, a prison alternative facility.
The parents were absolutely convinced they were taking care of their infant daughter, McNicol said. The couple lived off Social Security disability benefits. “They didn’t have a phone and didn’t know how to get a cab,” McNicol added.
The Clutters were able to seek help from a federal program for the needy known as the Women, Infants and Children Program. The program provides a variety of food, including milk, to mothers and children up to age 5.
The Clutters realized “that the one thing the child would like is milk,” McNicol said. A worker in the WIC program saw the child and notified authorities. “It’s very fortunate,” McNicol said, adding the worker “may have saved the child’s life.”
The little girl’s brain began to shrink either because it was shutting down due to a lack of food or as a means of self-protection, he said. “No evaluation was able to say one way or another that there was any permanent injury from the starvation,” McNicol added. Any problems the child may have could be hereditary or from the starvation. “There’s no way to tell,” McNicol said.
Since the case came to light last year, the couple has had another child. McNicol did not know the gender of the child. An older brother is being cared for by relatives. All three children are expected to be placed in foster care programs.
wilkinson@vindy.com
Parents get probation for starving child, 3
Published:Saturday, March 29, 2008
By D.A. Wilkinson
A worker in a nutrition program for women and children notified authorities.
LISBON — A “low-functioning” couple may lose custody of their children after authorities found their 3-year-old child weighed just 16 pounds, authorities said. The good news is the child is apparently doing well, authorities added.
The couple was not in a program such as the Columbiana County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities and did not have jobs, said Timothy McNicol, the assistant county prosecutor who handled the case. Daniel R. Clutter Jr., 33, and his wife, Tabitha Lynn Clutter, 24, of Wilbert Avenue, East Liverpool, were sentenced Friday. Each had pleaded guilty earlier to a felony charge of endangering children.
Judge David Tobin of common pleas court ordered them to serve five years’ probation, with the first month served in the Eastern Ohio Correctional Center in Jefferson County, a prison alternative facility.
The parents were absolutely convinced they were taking care of their infant daughter, McNicol said. The couple lived off Social Security disability benefits. “They didn’t have a phone and didn’t know how to get a cab,” McNicol added.
The Clutters were able to seek help from a federal program for the needy known as the Women, Infants and Children Program. The program provides a variety of food, including milk, to mothers and children up to age 5.
The Clutters realized “that the one thing the child would like is milk,” McNicol said. A worker in the WIC program saw the child and notified authorities. “It’s very fortunate,” McNicol said, adding the worker “may have saved the child’s life.”
The little girl’s brain began to shrink either because it was shutting down due to a lack of food or as a means of self-protection, he said. “No evaluation was able to say one way or another that there was any permanent injury from the starvation,” McNicol added. Any problems the child may have could be hereditary or from the starvation. “There’s no way to tell,” McNicol said.
Since the case came to light last year, the couple has had another child. McNicol did not know the gender of the child. An older brother is being cared for by relatives. All three children are expected to be placed in foster care programs.
wilkinson@vindy.com
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Epiphany at Plaid
I went into my neighborhood Plaid Pantry yesterday to make a purchase. I found what I was looking for and headed up to the counter to pay for it. When I got to the counter there was a man in front of me buying a soft drink.
The first thing I noticed was that this man was somewhat disheveled and looked like he was either homeless, developmentally challenged (and living on his own), or had mental health issues. Once I heard him say “hi” to the clerk, I figured out that he had a developmental disability.
He put the drink on the counter in front of him and handed the clerk a dollar bill. The clerk opened up the cash register and made the sale, handing the man back his change. Then the man just stood there with a slight smile on his face. He and the clerk looked at each other for about 5 seconds, until the silence was broken by the clerk saying; “OK, that’s it”. The man then said “goodbye” and walked out the door.
I found the interaction between these guys to be kind of funny, and asked the clerk if he knew the man. He replied; “Yeah, he comes in here all the time. I used to work with people like him. They’re really harmless.
I was a bit taken back by this statement. I asked him what he meant by “harmless”, and he told me that a lot of people are “afraid of people like him”.
That got me thinking about March being Developmental Disability Awareness Month here in Oregon. It makes me wonder when the general public is going to receive any real information about people with developmental disabilities. I wonder if there will ever be a campaign to inform people in general about the challenges these folks face on a daily basis.
The clerk was a good 6’ 4”, weighing well over 250 Lbs. He had a shaved head and a long pointy goatee. His eyebrow, both ears, and nose all had jewelry in piercings. Both of his bulky arms were covered in tattoos. As I walked out of the store I found myself rolling my eyes, smiling, and shaking my head.
The first thing I noticed was that this man was somewhat disheveled and looked like he was either homeless, developmentally challenged (and living on his own), or had mental health issues. Once I heard him say “hi” to the clerk, I figured out that he had a developmental disability.
He put the drink on the counter in front of him and handed the clerk a dollar bill. The clerk opened up the cash register and made the sale, handing the man back his change. Then the man just stood there with a slight smile on his face. He and the clerk looked at each other for about 5 seconds, until the silence was broken by the clerk saying; “OK, that’s it”. The man then said “goodbye” and walked out the door.
I found the interaction between these guys to be kind of funny, and asked the clerk if he knew the man. He replied; “Yeah, he comes in here all the time. I used to work with people like him. They’re really harmless.
I was a bit taken back by this statement. I asked him what he meant by “harmless”, and he told me that a lot of people are “afraid of people like him”.
That got me thinking about March being Developmental Disability Awareness Month here in Oregon. It makes me wonder when the general public is going to receive any real information about people with developmental disabilities. I wonder if there will ever be a campaign to inform people in general about the challenges these folks face on a daily basis.
The clerk was a good 6’ 4”, weighing well over 250 Lbs. He had a shaved head and a long pointy goatee. His eyebrow, both ears, and nose all had jewelry in piercings. Both of his bulky arms were covered in tattoos. As I walked out of the store I found myself rolling my eyes, smiling, and shaking my head.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Where the Hell is the OMBUDSMAN PROGRAM?!?!
There’s a glaring need yet to be addressed in all the dancing around the abuse/neglect of people with developmental disabilities in Oregon. That is an INDEPENDENT Ombudsman program. There needs to be a mandate that group homes and foster care homes must work cooperatively with this program.
It should involve unannounced visits at all times of the day and night, where a trained person comes into these residences and checks out what’s going on. The only paperwork they should be concerned with is medical, incident reports, and communication logs. They should interview both the people living there and the staff who work there. If the resident(s) are unable to communicate, the investigator should ask more questions of more people who know the individual. Finally, the non communicative person should be flagged as being a potential target.
If the ombudsman has suspicions or finds that abuse or neglect is in fact taking place, Protective Services AND the police should be notified. The police must be mandated to work cooperatively with Protective Services in investigations. They must receive the proper training on how to do this.
Until such a program is put into place expect more horror stories from the Oregonian and elsewhere about the abuse and neglect of our most vulnerable citizens. It’s that simple.
It should involve unannounced visits at all times of the day and night, where a trained person comes into these residences and checks out what’s going on. The only paperwork they should be concerned with is medical, incident reports, and communication logs. They should interview both the people living there and the staff who work there. If the resident(s) are unable to communicate, the investigator should ask more questions of more people who know the individual. Finally, the non communicative person should be flagged as being a potential target.
If the ombudsman has suspicions or finds that abuse or neglect is in fact taking place, Protective Services AND the police should be notified. The police must be mandated to work cooperatively with Protective Services in investigations. They must receive the proper training on how to do this.
Until such a program is put into place expect more horror stories from the Oregonian and elsewhere about the abuse and neglect of our most vulnerable citizens. It’s that simple.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Stereotypes, Labels, and Assumptions
You hear folks making broad, sweeping statements about people with autism all the time. It drives me nuts! There seems to be very little energy put into discovering autistic people's individuality. I've learned over the years that making assumptions about people with any kind of disability label is harmful to both them and the community they live in.
Where autism is concerned it's actually doubly negative. The reason I write this is that autism has been on the rise for some time now, so it's important that these dangerous assumptions not be thrown around carelessly. As more autistic people come into our communities we are going to have to understand that although there may be some commonalities among them, there are even more individualized traits.
I found this story from the Lodi News-Sentinel out of California today. I'm going to step out on a limb here by going on record as saying what is happening in this young MAN's life has a team of people messing him up. From his well intentioned parents who treat him like a little kid, to his support people that seemingly go along with his parents, to the newspaper making these ridiculous assumptions about all people with autism.
Where autism is concerned it's actually doubly negative. The reason I write this is that autism has been on the rise for some time now, so it's important that these dangerous assumptions not be thrown around carelessly. As more autistic people come into our communities we are going to have to understand that although there may be some commonalities among them, there are even more individualized traits.
I found this story from the Lodi News-Sentinel out of California today. I'm going to step out on a limb here by going on record as saying what is happening in this young MAN's life has a team of people messing him up. From his well intentioned parents who treat him like a little kid, to his support people that seemingly go along with his parents, to the newspaper making these ridiculous assumptions about all people with autism.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
New Mental Health Facility in Wa. County?
From the Department of Human Services comes the following. The reason I'm posting this is in case people in our state want an opportunity to weigh in on the proposal. I'm not talking about the NIMBY (not in my back yard) crowd, but those who care about folks with mental health issues. I know there is a big push in the disability community for community based care, and I'm wondering if anyone might want to contact DHS before the 3/31 deadline for an informal hearing.
March 19, 2008
General contact: Patrick O’Neill, 971-673-2298Program contact: Jana Fussell, 971-673-1108
State issues proposed order granting certificate of need for a new psychiatric hospital in unincorporated Washington County
The Oregon Department of Human Services today issued a proposed order to Ascend Health Corporation granting a certificate of need for a 36-bed psychiatric hospital to be located at the site of the former Cedar Hills Hospital at 10300 S.W. Eastridge Street, Portland. The capital expenditure for this project is estimated to be $6,743,935.
Project approval is contingent on conditions that will help ensure access and safety.
The order issued today is a proposed order. Any affected party who takes exception to the proposed order may request the DHS Public Health Division to hold an informal hearing. If no request for a hearing is received by March 31, 2008, the proposed order will automatically become final.
State law charges DHS officials with reviewing proposals for new hospitals and nursing facilities to make sure health-care consumers don’t pay for the cost of unnecessary facilities.
March 19, 2008
General contact: Patrick O’Neill, 971-673-2298Program contact: Jana Fussell, 971-673-1108
State issues proposed order granting certificate of need for a new psychiatric hospital in unincorporated Washington County
The Oregon Department of Human Services today issued a proposed order to Ascend Health Corporation granting a certificate of need for a 36-bed psychiatric hospital to be located at the site of the former Cedar Hills Hospital at 10300 S.W. Eastridge Street, Portland. The capital expenditure for this project is estimated to be $6,743,935.
Project approval is contingent on conditions that will help ensure access and safety.
The order issued today is a proposed order. Any affected party who takes exception to the proposed order may request the DHS Public Health Division to hold an informal hearing. If no request for a hearing is received by March 31, 2008, the proposed order will automatically become final.
State law charges DHS officials with reviewing proposals for new hospitals and nursing facilities to make sure health-care consumers don’t pay for the cost of unnecessary facilities.
Friday, March 14, 2008
The Vets Know
If you are in the Portland area, and have access to cable, you should stop what you're doing and turn on channel 23 right now. They are airing the "Winter Soldier" Hearings. It's live testimony about what has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq from veterans who have been there and their families. If you posess human emotion, I challenge you to watch this without shedding a tear.
Also... make sure that you show up downtown tomorrow if you believe these wars are wrong.
Also... make sure that you show up downtown tomorrow if you believe these wars are wrong.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Are You Sleeping?!?
I was going to copy a story of the torture and murder of a woman in Alton, Illinois who had a developmental disability. The details are horrid and disgusting. It’s the kind of stuff that makes one feel nauseous. It makes one want to do something. Then I got to thinking.
I’ve written about similar stories on this blog before. In fact, as recently as March 7th, I put a story out there of medical neglect of an Oregonian with mental health issues who eventually committed suicide. And guess what? No comment.
Are people so numb that stories like these are unimportant to them? Are the people who tell you “nobody really cares” correct? It simply amazes me.
I’ve written about similar stories on this blog before. In fact, as recently as March 7th, I put a story out there of medical neglect of an Oregonian with mental health issues who eventually committed suicide. And guess what? No comment.
Are people so numb that stories like these are unimportant to them? Are the people who tell you “nobody really cares” correct? It simply amazes me.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Buh Bye Check into Cash
I found this in a blog called Payday Pundit. They claim that the legislature putting the squeeze on companies like this is bad for the working poor in Oregon. I have my doubts, but I'm certainly no financial whiz.
Check into Cash Closes Doors in Oregon
Posted on March 11, 2008 by paydaypundit
Check into Cash, a CFSA member company and one of the nation’s largest payday advance companies, has announced that they have closed their remaining 13 stores in Oregon. Their action comes one year after the Oregon legislature passed a law imposing a 36% APR cap on payday loans.
Allan Jones, Check into Cash CEO, explained that many stores closed when the legislature passed the 36% APR cap. No longer able to offer payday loans, they tried to meet customer needs by offering check cashing services and a new loan product. “These new products were not popular with consumers, nor profitable for the company,” said Jones.
Also from the release:
“With the closing of our remaining stores, Oregon citizens will no longer have access to short-term credit and will be forced into costly products such as overdraft protection and bounced check fees.”
“We tried to work within the constraints of the law, but lost money each and every month we tried to operate there under the new rules. We have proven that it cannot be done.”
“We are saddened that we have been forced to close our stores, putting our employees out of work and leaving our customers without a service they appreciated.”
“As we warned the legislators in Oregon, payday lending cannot be offered under a 36% rate cap. An annual percentage rate of 36% applied to a two-week loan amounts to less than a dime a day on a $100 two-week loan. That cut us from $15 to $1.38 for the two-week transaction. The legislators seem fixed on the APR of 391% as being bad, when in reality, it amounted to $15.”
Mr. Jones said it best when he stated, “The legislators will now have to answer to the tens of thousands of consumers whose credit choices are now limited because this type of micro-lending has been abolished, forcing consumers to more expensive options where no APR disclosure is required, such as overdrafts.”
Check into Cash Closes Doors in Oregon
Posted on March 11, 2008 by paydaypundit
Check into Cash, a CFSA member company and one of the nation’s largest payday advance companies, has announced that they have closed their remaining 13 stores in Oregon. Their action comes one year after the Oregon legislature passed a law imposing a 36% APR cap on payday loans.
Allan Jones, Check into Cash CEO, explained that many stores closed when the legislature passed the 36% APR cap. No longer able to offer payday loans, they tried to meet customer needs by offering check cashing services and a new loan product. “These new products were not popular with consumers, nor profitable for the company,” said Jones.
Also from the release:
“With the closing of our remaining stores, Oregon citizens will no longer have access to short-term credit and will be forced into costly products such as overdraft protection and bounced check fees.”
“We tried to work within the constraints of the law, but lost money each and every month we tried to operate there under the new rules. We have proven that it cannot be done.”
“We are saddened that we have been forced to close our stores, putting our employees out of work and leaving our customers without a service they appreciated.”
“As we warned the legislators in Oregon, payday lending cannot be offered under a 36% rate cap. An annual percentage rate of 36% applied to a two-week loan amounts to less than a dime a day on a $100 two-week loan. That cut us from $15 to $1.38 for the two-week transaction. The legislators seem fixed on the APR of 391% as being bad, when in reality, it amounted to $15.”
Mr. Jones said it best when he stated, “The legislators will now have to answer to the tens of thousands of consumers whose credit choices are now limited because this type of micro-lending has been abolished, forcing consumers to more expensive options where no APR disclosure is required, such as overdrafts.”
1,000 Hits
When I checked out my blog this morning I noticed I'd reached a milestone. Sometime in the last 24 hours I scored my 1,000th hit! Actually since then it's gone up to 1,001, but who's counting. It sure would be nice to have 1,000 comments to go along with those hits, but I know the nature of my blog is controversial, so most folks don't have the hutzpah to have their name associated with my writings.
1,000 hits... more than A-Rod in his first 5 years in the Major Leagues. More than the swats my abusive dad laid on the whole family combined. More than every scene in all the Cheech and Chong movies. And more than than the Beatles and Stones put together.
1,000 hits... more than A-Rod in his first 5 years in the Major Leagues. More than the swats my abusive dad laid on the whole family combined. More than every scene in all the Cheech and Chong movies. And more than than the Beatles and Stones put together.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Abuse is Everybody's Business
The sign says:
Look
Listen
Report
Every year, hundreds of Oregonians with developmental disabilities are abused and neglected
you are the eyes and ears of your community
If you even suspect that a person with developmental disabilities is being
abused o r neglected
call toll free 1-8 6 6-4 0 6-4 2 8 7
We are aware that the Oregon Council on Developmental Disabilities has a plan to send this poster to every group home and foster home in the state of Oregon as part of their campaign to encourage citizen reporting of suspected abuse and neglect.
Since we have a grown kid living in a foster home, we are taking this plan hatched by OCDD very personally.
We know that a small group of insiders funded with our federal advocacy dollars crafted this sign. There was no community conversation, no discussion as to whether or not this sign is well designed and effective, and no discussion as to whether or not such a sign hanging in group homes and foster homes is even a good idea.
Some of the points we’ve been considering include:
1.) It’s preaching to the choir: every person hired to work in these homes is already mandated to receive the necessary yearly training regarding reporting abuse (Mandatory Abuse Reporters). If the goal is to increase broader community involvement as reporters, then any information campaign should be focused outside these settings, for example, doctor’s offices, libraries, community centers, banks, schools, post offices, theaters, grocery stores, sports arenas, government offices and workplaces, etc. These are the places where untrained people can be found and encouraged to participate in reporting abuse and neglect of people with disabilities.
2.) Most of the problem is not the lack of reporting by caregivers in group homes. This focus puts the entire responsibility on the on-the-ground caregivers who are already doing their job as mandatory reporters. The real problem has been the lack of information about the outcomes of those reports from these caregivers, and the lack of prosecutions of criminal behavior. It’s not clear why the focus is on increasing reporting to protective services within these residences without the requisite changes to the systems that respond to these reports.
3.) We are told over and over again that these homes are not institutions. You can’t call someone’s residence a “homelike setting” when there are signs like this posted. How many of you have a sign posted in your home? How many of you have been “asked” by a government agency to post a sign in your home? We also believe that the people who actually live in these group and foster homes aren’t being asked at all whether they even want this sign posted in their homes. Where’s the choice and “self-direction” there?
4.) Posting a sign like this has the effect of increasing the institutional culture of these residences, which has been proven to put people at an even higher risk of abuse and neglect.
5.) Addressing this issue in private and only within the homes of people with disabilities communicates to them that this is their problem alone and that they are responsible for solving it themselves.
6.) Limiting the posting to only these settings further confirms in the abuser’s mind that this is an isolated system where abuse is easier to perpetrate. Abusers who target people with disabilities are not naive to the realities of a social services system that is underfunded to adequately respond to these reports. If there is any phone number that belongs on a sign, it is 9-1-1. Perpetrators need to know that what they are considering is a crime that will be reported to law enforcement. People with developmental disabilities need to know that, too, so that they can make an informed choice to exercise all their options when they are victims of crime.
We are requesting input, ideas and comments from readers in the community.
We are asking for a community conversation.
We are requesting input as to whether or not this sign is well designed and effective.
We are requesting a discussion as to whether or not such a sign is even a good idea.
Please give us your best thoughts. Thank you.
David and Suzanne McDonald
DAWG Oregon
Friday, March 07, 2008
Cindy's Story
The following story was found in the Bend Bulletin. It clearly shows how a life was lost due to suspicious circumstances. It clearly shows a system badly in need of an overhaul. It clearly shows the incompetence of those paid to protect and keep safe some of the most vulnerable people in our state. This story breaks my heart.
‘Please help me’
Cindy Powell had struggled with mental illness since she was 14. On Monday, she jumped to her death from a hospital balcony as she was being taken to a locked treatment facility. Here is her story.
Three days before jumping to her death from a balcony in St. Charles Bend’s main lobby, Cindy Powell drove to the hospital’s emergency room with multiple cuts on her arms from a kitchen knife.She was stitched up and sent home with ibuprofen, printed information about depression and bipolar disorder, and instructions to have the sutures removed in 10 days.
Powell, 51, who lived alone in a studio apartment in Redmond, had called the Deschutes County Mental Health Crisis Line twice that day. She later told an ER nurse that “it wasn’t much help, and they told her to come in Monday.” She was released from the hospital at 11:49 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22 — two hours after her arrival — with instructions to call the crisis line if she needed help.
Dr. Robin Henderson, the director of Behavioral Services at Cascade Community Healthcare, the parent company of St. Charles, said hospital workers made the right decision. At the same time, Henderson said, they basically had no choice under Oregon law.
The diagnosis: Borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder is a severe mental illness characterized by unstable moods and bouts of anger, depression and anxiety. It occurs most often in young women. Patients often injure themselves but have no intent of committing suicide. They may have episodes of impulsive aggression, self-injury and drug or alcohol abuse. Feelings of isolation and lack of social support may result in frantic efforts to avoid being alone.
The pills: What she was taking
“She said, ‘I wasn’t trying to kill myself’ — she actually said that,” Henderson said. “At that point, we’re not seeing intent, and this particular injury was not holdable. If we do, then we’ve got a civil rights violation on our hands.” In Oregon, two physicians must find people are a danger to themselves or others before they can be put on a five-day psychiatric hold against their will. Because Powell said she didn’t want to kill herself and told a nurse that she never had a desire to hurt anyone else, St. Charles’ staff couldn’t keep her, Henderson said. “(Patient) extremely negative regarding her prognosis for mental health help,” wrote the nurse who processed her discharge.
It was a weekend, so the Deschutes County Mental Health Department, which had been treating Powell since late October, couldn’t see her. “And there is no respite care here, because there isn’t any funding,” Henderson said. “It’s a horrible situation.” Respite care is temporary, short-term care for patients with special mental health or social service needs, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services. Because it doesn’t exist in Central Oregon, hospital staff were left with two choices for Powell that Friday: Lock her up, or let her go.
What happened next
Powell told a nurse Friday night that she had flown into a rage and cut herself to diffuse the situation, according to medical records. That behavior is consistent with her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, Henderson said, and is a common symptom of the illness. “The reality is that people who are lethally attempting to kill themselves do not drive themselves to the (emergency room),” she said. “It would have been contraindicated and harmful for her to be repeatedly hospitalized.”
There aren’t any records of a phone call from Powell to the mental health crisis line on Saturday. But at 5:41 p.m., she was found in St. Charles Bend’s ER waiting room, unresponsive and with shallow breathing.
After Powell’s death, two of her sisters would find more than a dozen pill bottles in a bathtub in her tiny apartment. Powell had been diagnosed with a long-standing addiction to prescription pain medications, and doctors who cared for her believe she had overdosed on a sedative. Powell stayed at the hospital overnight, and progress notes show she was fully awake by the next afternoon. She said she was hopeless and wanted to kill herself. “I have nothing,” a nurse quotes her as saying. “I don’t want anything other than to be let to die.”
In the evening, she talked to a nurse’s assistant about her life. The nurse’s notes say Powell had “a family history of alcoholic parents, (molested as a child), father who beat her, inability to live on her current income, she is often cold, hungry and wearing dirty clothes, has a distrust that anyone can help her, was seeing a counselor that committed suicide.”
Powell also had a long history of anorexia nervosa, or starving herself, and told nurses that “eating in the hospital will get her used to food, and then she will not be able to live without it once she goes home.” She continued to talk about killing herself, or getting someone else to do it, Sunday night and Monday, according to hospital records.
The move
Doctors decided to move Powell to St. Charles’ acute mental health care facility, Sage View, on Monday. Powell spent the day telling hospital staff that she did not want to go there. Progress notes show she refused to promise that she wouldn’t hurt herself if she was transferred. Her doctor wrote that Powell “has us over a barrel.” “She, I think, really is very manipulative wanting only to be taken care of, but refusing any direct care claiming that she wants to kill herself,” Dr. William Campbell wrote. “I think we are faced with having to evaluate whether to commit her or not and with that moving her to Sage View.”
That evening, after a half-hour meeting with a clinical social worker, Powell changed her mind and agreed to “contract for safety,” promising she wouldn’t hurt herself on the way to Sage View.
At 8 p.m., a clinical social worker and a member of Sage View’s staff picked up Powell from her room and took her downstairs to get her purse, which was still in the admitting area. Contrary to normal protocols, they walked her through the hospital’s main lobby. She was not restrained because she was not violent, and the organization that certifies the hospital does not allow it, Henderson said. Bend psychologist Mike Conner said he could not comment on Powell’s case but did note that the chances for a person diagnosed with borderline personality disorder to commit suicide are low. Conner did not treat Powell. But he said that, in seven years of arranging transports in Portland for borderline personality disorder patients with recent suicide attempts, he never allowed a transport without some restraint. “What’s the problem with putting them on a comfy little gurney with a belt?” he said.
Henderson said that the hospital is reviewing its transfer policies. They have started putting every transfer patient in a wheelchair and will no longer take them through the lobby, she said.
Powell’s escorts had been specifically trained not to grab for or go after patients who run from staff, Henderson said. “Grabbing them is a dangerous thing to do,” she said. “We train to call for assistance.” So when she bolted from them in the lobby at about 8:10 p.m., the two called for Powell but didn’t chase her. She ran up a staircase to a balcony that leads to the hospital’s cafeteria, paused for a moment and then jumped over the railing. The 25-foot fall caused massive head trauma, neck and back fractures, and broken ribs, hospital records show.
Medics were with her almost immediately, performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR. She initially breathed on her own and moved a finger and her legs. Six minutes later, Powell was in the ER, blood leaking out of her left ear. She was put on life support, and doctors wrote that brain death was imminent. Her sisters, Bonda Powell, of Bend, and Jackie Feik, of Port Orchard, Wash., told hospital staff to honor Cindy Powell’s wishes to be an organ donor.
How she got there
Powell’s sisters both confirmed her reports that she’d been abused as a child. They grew up in violence with alcoholic parents. The family moved often, running from bill collectors, Feik said. The children regularly ran away and were placed in homes away from their parents at times. “She was real angry from a very young age,” Feik said about Cindy Powell.
Their father died in 1991, and Cindy Powell and her mother ended up in Redmond, where they became close, Bonda Powell said. Their mother cared for Cindy until she died in 2003. Then, Cindy turned to Bonda for help. “Bonda said, ‘She is a mess, she needs institutionalization,’” Feik said.
Cindy Powell met a man online and moved to Utah to be with him in 2004, the sisters said. During the relationship, she continued her suicide attempts, once on the wedding day of her boyfriend’s daughter. The two broke up, Feik said, and Cindy Powell moved back to Central Oregon in 2007.
On Oct. 30, just one day after she moved back from Utah, Powell turned up at Deschutes County Mental Health, complaining of anxiety problems and saying she’d come in because she was “trying to save my life.” Staff notes described Powell, then 50, as “older than her stated age, pale and thin.” The report shows that Powell was homeless at the time. She was given information about a Family Resource Center Web site and told to return after she became insured under the Oregon Health Plan.
Powell’s contact with Deschutes Mental Health dropped off for a full month. On Dec. 1, Bonda Powell called the Redmond Police Department to say her sister planned to “starve herself to death.” That day, police found Powell in her apartment, with a butcher knife, bleeding from several cuts to her head and appearing to be suffering the effects of a drug overdose. She had written “I tried” in blood on the wall above her bed, according to her sisters.
In and out of the hospital
Powell was taken to St. Charles Redmond, where doctors recommended transferring her to Bend. On Dec. 3, a clinician noted that Powell “states that she cut herself so she could be a martyr for those people who do not have access to medical care.”
Powell was moved to Sage View, where she met regularly with counselors. Three days later, Powell appeared to be feeling better. She told one staff member that the hospital stay had been “a turning point” and that she was excited about making friends in the facility. She was discharged shortly after.
For the rest of December, Powell went regularly to Deschutes County Mental Health for individual and group therapy sessions. She told counselors about her difficult childhood and detailed her dozens of earlier suicide attempts and about 10 hospitalizations. Records show that Powell reported eating only once a day. But by mid-December, she reported wanting to get herself “stabilized physically and mentally.”
January brought a turn for the worse, when Powell told counselors she was highly anxious, concerned about losing her Redmond apartment and ending up on the street. Doctors prescribed new medications, but it is unclear which ones she actually took; a record dated Feb. 20 notes that Powell had gone to the pharmacy but was unable to afford an $8 co-pay.
Two days later, Powell called the crisis line twice. During the first call at 5:48 p.m., notes say Powell said she’d called because she was experiencing severe mood swings and bouts of rage, and that while she was not thinking of harming herself, she wished that someone would harm her, according to Deschutes County Mental Health records. She was on the line for more than 40 minutes. By 8:05 p.m., when she called for a second time, Powell had cut her arm to “relieve some things” but did not intend to kill herself, the records show. After seven minutes of conversation, Powell said she planned to drive herself to the hospital and hung up the phone.
Seven hours later, at 2 a.m., Powell called the crisis line again and told the staff member on duty that she’d been to the hospital but said it was a “waste of time.” She agreed to call again on Monday to talk about a treatment plan. But Monday came too late.
“We can all get caught up in the minutiae, but the mental health system failed this woman and continued to fail her,” Henderson said.
Left behind
Powell’s sisters spent much of last week together, gathering up Cindy’s unpaid bills and donating her meager belongings to a thrift store. They pored over detailed notes showing a desperate woman living a pained life. Powell wrote about her quest for help and inability to live on the $627 she got monthly from Social Security. Her rent alone was $350.
“She’s got ‘Please help me’ on so many of these papers that we have run across and, I mean, she knew she was sinking,” Feik said. Feik described her sister as “a real note taker” and said it had become a necessity. The medications she took affected her memory, Feik said, so Cindy Powell wrote down nearly everything she needed to remember. Powell wrote about doctor’s appointments and frustration about not getting better.
“It just feels like she can’t be the only one who experienced this,” Feik said, as she sat on a love seat in her dead sister’s apartment. It was decorated with a feminine pink and white bedspread, and a light coverlet over her small couch.
And before her sisters had even packed one box, Bonda Powell talked about the only thing her sister really wanted. “A couple of weeks ago, she said, ‘Bonda, all I want is to be happy, that’s what I ask God for every night.”
Cindy Powers can be reached at 617-7812 or cpowers@bendbulletin.com. Erin Golden can be reached at 408-2836 or egolden@bendbulletin.com.
‘Please help me’
Cindy Powell had struggled with mental illness since she was 14. On Monday, she jumped to her death from a hospital balcony as she was being taken to a locked treatment facility. Here is her story.
Three days before jumping to her death from a balcony in St. Charles Bend’s main lobby, Cindy Powell drove to the hospital’s emergency room with multiple cuts on her arms from a kitchen knife.She was stitched up and sent home with ibuprofen, printed information about depression and bipolar disorder, and instructions to have the sutures removed in 10 days.
Powell, 51, who lived alone in a studio apartment in Redmond, had called the Deschutes County Mental Health Crisis Line twice that day. She later told an ER nurse that “it wasn’t much help, and they told her to come in Monday.” She was released from the hospital at 11:49 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22 — two hours after her arrival — with instructions to call the crisis line if she needed help.
Dr. Robin Henderson, the director of Behavioral Services at Cascade Community Healthcare, the parent company of St. Charles, said hospital workers made the right decision. At the same time, Henderson said, they basically had no choice under Oregon law.
The diagnosis: Borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder is a severe mental illness characterized by unstable moods and bouts of anger, depression and anxiety. It occurs most often in young women. Patients often injure themselves but have no intent of committing suicide. They may have episodes of impulsive aggression, self-injury and drug or alcohol abuse. Feelings of isolation and lack of social support may result in frantic efforts to avoid being alone.
The pills: What she was taking
“She said, ‘I wasn’t trying to kill myself’ — she actually said that,” Henderson said. “At that point, we’re not seeing intent, and this particular injury was not holdable. If we do, then we’ve got a civil rights violation on our hands.” In Oregon, two physicians must find people are a danger to themselves or others before they can be put on a five-day psychiatric hold against their will. Because Powell said she didn’t want to kill herself and told a nurse that she never had a desire to hurt anyone else, St. Charles’ staff couldn’t keep her, Henderson said. “(Patient) extremely negative regarding her prognosis for mental health help,” wrote the nurse who processed her discharge.
It was a weekend, so the Deschutes County Mental Health Department, which had been treating Powell since late October, couldn’t see her. “And there is no respite care here, because there isn’t any funding,” Henderson said. “It’s a horrible situation.” Respite care is temporary, short-term care for patients with special mental health or social service needs, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services. Because it doesn’t exist in Central Oregon, hospital staff were left with two choices for Powell that Friday: Lock her up, or let her go.
What happened next
Powell told a nurse Friday night that she had flown into a rage and cut herself to diffuse the situation, according to medical records. That behavior is consistent with her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, Henderson said, and is a common symptom of the illness. “The reality is that people who are lethally attempting to kill themselves do not drive themselves to the (emergency room),” she said. “It would have been contraindicated and harmful for her to be repeatedly hospitalized.”
There aren’t any records of a phone call from Powell to the mental health crisis line on Saturday. But at 5:41 p.m., she was found in St. Charles Bend’s ER waiting room, unresponsive and with shallow breathing.
After Powell’s death, two of her sisters would find more than a dozen pill bottles in a bathtub in her tiny apartment. Powell had been diagnosed with a long-standing addiction to prescription pain medications, and doctors who cared for her believe she had overdosed on a sedative. Powell stayed at the hospital overnight, and progress notes show she was fully awake by the next afternoon. She said she was hopeless and wanted to kill herself. “I have nothing,” a nurse quotes her as saying. “I don’t want anything other than to be let to die.”
In the evening, she talked to a nurse’s assistant about her life. The nurse’s notes say Powell had “a family history of alcoholic parents, (molested as a child), father who beat her, inability to live on her current income, she is often cold, hungry and wearing dirty clothes, has a distrust that anyone can help her, was seeing a counselor that committed suicide.”
Powell also had a long history of anorexia nervosa, or starving herself, and told nurses that “eating in the hospital will get her used to food, and then she will not be able to live without it once she goes home.” She continued to talk about killing herself, or getting someone else to do it, Sunday night and Monday, according to hospital records.
The move
Doctors decided to move Powell to St. Charles’ acute mental health care facility, Sage View, on Monday. Powell spent the day telling hospital staff that she did not want to go there. Progress notes show she refused to promise that she wouldn’t hurt herself if she was transferred. Her doctor wrote that Powell “has us over a barrel.” “She, I think, really is very manipulative wanting only to be taken care of, but refusing any direct care claiming that she wants to kill herself,” Dr. William Campbell wrote. “I think we are faced with having to evaluate whether to commit her or not and with that moving her to Sage View.”
That evening, after a half-hour meeting with a clinical social worker, Powell changed her mind and agreed to “contract for safety,” promising she wouldn’t hurt herself on the way to Sage View.
At 8 p.m., a clinical social worker and a member of Sage View’s staff picked up Powell from her room and took her downstairs to get her purse, which was still in the admitting area. Contrary to normal protocols, they walked her through the hospital’s main lobby. She was not restrained because she was not violent, and the organization that certifies the hospital does not allow it, Henderson said. Bend psychologist Mike Conner said he could not comment on Powell’s case but did note that the chances for a person diagnosed with borderline personality disorder to commit suicide are low. Conner did not treat Powell. But he said that, in seven years of arranging transports in Portland for borderline personality disorder patients with recent suicide attempts, he never allowed a transport without some restraint. “What’s the problem with putting them on a comfy little gurney with a belt?” he said.
Henderson said that the hospital is reviewing its transfer policies. They have started putting every transfer patient in a wheelchair and will no longer take them through the lobby, she said.
Powell’s escorts had been specifically trained not to grab for or go after patients who run from staff, Henderson said. “Grabbing them is a dangerous thing to do,” she said. “We train to call for assistance.” So when she bolted from them in the lobby at about 8:10 p.m., the two called for Powell but didn’t chase her. She ran up a staircase to a balcony that leads to the hospital’s cafeteria, paused for a moment and then jumped over the railing. The 25-foot fall caused massive head trauma, neck and back fractures, and broken ribs, hospital records show.
Medics were with her almost immediately, performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR. She initially breathed on her own and moved a finger and her legs. Six minutes later, Powell was in the ER, blood leaking out of her left ear. She was put on life support, and doctors wrote that brain death was imminent. Her sisters, Bonda Powell, of Bend, and Jackie Feik, of Port Orchard, Wash., told hospital staff to honor Cindy Powell’s wishes to be an organ donor.
How she got there
Powell’s sisters both confirmed her reports that she’d been abused as a child. They grew up in violence with alcoholic parents. The family moved often, running from bill collectors, Feik said. The children regularly ran away and were placed in homes away from their parents at times. “She was real angry from a very young age,” Feik said about Cindy Powell.
Their father died in 1991, and Cindy Powell and her mother ended up in Redmond, where they became close, Bonda Powell said. Their mother cared for Cindy until she died in 2003. Then, Cindy turned to Bonda for help. “Bonda said, ‘She is a mess, she needs institutionalization,’” Feik said.
Cindy Powell met a man online and moved to Utah to be with him in 2004, the sisters said. During the relationship, she continued her suicide attempts, once on the wedding day of her boyfriend’s daughter. The two broke up, Feik said, and Cindy Powell moved back to Central Oregon in 2007.
On Oct. 30, just one day after she moved back from Utah, Powell turned up at Deschutes County Mental Health, complaining of anxiety problems and saying she’d come in because she was “trying to save my life.” Staff notes described Powell, then 50, as “older than her stated age, pale and thin.” The report shows that Powell was homeless at the time. She was given information about a Family Resource Center Web site and told to return after she became insured under the Oregon Health Plan.
Powell’s contact with Deschutes Mental Health dropped off for a full month. On Dec. 1, Bonda Powell called the Redmond Police Department to say her sister planned to “starve herself to death.” That day, police found Powell in her apartment, with a butcher knife, bleeding from several cuts to her head and appearing to be suffering the effects of a drug overdose. She had written “I tried” in blood on the wall above her bed, according to her sisters.
In and out of the hospital
Powell was taken to St. Charles Redmond, where doctors recommended transferring her to Bend. On Dec. 3, a clinician noted that Powell “states that she cut herself so she could be a martyr for those people who do not have access to medical care.”
Powell was moved to Sage View, where she met regularly with counselors. Three days later, Powell appeared to be feeling better. She told one staff member that the hospital stay had been “a turning point” and that she was excited about making friends in the facility. She was discharged shortly after.
For the rest of December, Powell went regularly to Deschutes County Mental Health for individual and group therapy sessions. She told counselors about her difficult childhood and detailed her dozens of earlier suicide attempts and about 10 hospitalizations. Records show that Powell reported eating only once a day. But by mid-December, she reported wanting to get herself “stabilized physically and mentally.”
January brought a turn for the worse, when Powell told counselors she was highly anxious, concerned about losing her Redmond apartment and ending up on the street. Doctors prescribed new medications, but it is unclear which ones she actually took; a record dated Feb. 20 notes that Powell had gone to the pharmacy but was unable to afford an $8 co-pay.
Two days later, Powell called the crisis line twice. During the first call at 5:48 p.m., notes say Powell said she’d called because she was experiencing severe mood swings and bouts of rage, and that while she was not thinking of harming herself, she wished that someone would harm her, according to Deschutes County Mental Health records. She was on the line for more than 40 minutes. By 8:05 p.m., when she called for a second time, Powell had cut her arm to “relieve some things” but did not intend to kill herself, the records show. After seven minutes of conversation, Powell said she planned to drive herself to the hospital and hung up the phone.
Seven hours later, at 2 a.m., Powell called the crisis line again and told the staff member on duty that she’d been to the hospital but said it was a “waste of time.” She agreed to call again on Monday to talk about a treatment plan. But Monday came too late.
“We can all get caught up in the minutiae, but the mental health system failed this woman and continued to fail her,” Henderson said.
Left behind
Powell’s sisters spent much of last week together, gathering up Cindy’s unpaid bills and donating her meager belongings to a thrift store. They pored over detailed notes showing a desperate woman living a pained life. Powell wrote about her quest for help and inability to live on the $627 she got monthly from Social Security. Her rent alone was $350.
“She’s got ‘Please help me’ on so many of these papers that we have run across and, I mean, she knew she was sinking,” Feik said. Feik described her sister as “a real note taker” and said it had become a necessity. The medications she took affected her memory, Feik said, so Cindy Powell wrote down nearly everything she needed to remember. Powell wrote about doctor’s appointments and frustration about not getting better.
“It just feels like she can’t be the only one who experienced this,” Feik said, as she sat on a love seat in her dead sister’s apartment. It was decorated with a feminine pink and white bedspread, and a light coverlet over her small couch.
And before her sisters had even packed one box, Bonda Powell talked about the only thing her sister really wanted. “A couple of weeks ago, she said, ‘Bonda, all I want is to be happy, that’s what I ask God for every night.”
Cindy Powers can be reached at 617-7812 or cpowers@bendbulletin.com. Erin Golden can be reached at 408-2836 or egolden@bendbulletin.com.
The following story was found in the Bend Bulletin. It clearly shows how a life was lost due to suspicious circumstances. It clearly shows a system badly in need of an overhaul. It clearly shows the incompetence of those paid to protect and keep safe some of the most vulnerable people in our state. This story breaks my heart.
‘Please help me’
Cindy Powell had struggled with mental illness since she was 14. On Monday, she jumped to her death from a hospital balcony as she was being taken to a locked treatment facility. Here is her story.
Three days before jumping to her death from a balcony in St. Charles Bend’s main lobby, Cindy Powell drove to the hospital’s emergency room with multiple cuts on her arms from a kitchen knife.She was stitched up and sent home with ibuprofen, printed information about depression and bipolar disorder, and instructions to have the sutures removed in 10 days.
Powell, 51, who lived alone in a studio apartment in Redmond, had called the Deschutes County Mental Health Crisis Line twice that day. She later told an ER nurse that “it wasn’t much help, and they told her to come in Monday.” She was released from the hospital at 11:49 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22 — two hours after her arrival — with instructions to call the crisis line if she needed help.
Dr. Robin Henderson, the director of Behavioral Services at Cascade Community Healthcare, the parent company of St. Charles, said hospital workers made the right decision. At the same time, Henderson said, they basically had no choice under Oregon law.
The diagnosis: Borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder is a severe mental illness characterized by unstable moods and bouts of anger, depression and anxiety. It occurs most often in young women. Patients often injure themselves but have no intent of committing suicide. They may have episodes of impulsive aggression, self-injury and drug or alcohol abuse. Feelings of isolation and lack of social support may result in frantic efforts to avoid being alone.
The pills: What she was taking
“She said, ‘I wasn’t trying to kill myself’ — she actually said that,” Henderson said. “At that point, we’re not seeing intent, and this particular injury was not holdable. If we do, then we’ve got a civil rights violation on our hands.” In Oregon, two physicians must find people are a danger to themselves or others before they can be put on a five-day psychiatric hold against their will. Because Powell said she didn’t want to kill herself and told a nurse that she never had a desire to hurt anyone else, St. Charles’ staff couldn’t keep her, Henderson said. “(Patient) extremely negative regarding her prognosis for mental health help,” wrote the nurse who processed her discharge.
It was a weekend, so the Deschutes County Mental Health Department, which had been treating Powell since late October, couldn’t see her. “And there is no respite care here, because there isn’t any funding,” Henderson said. “It’s a horrible situation.” Respite care is temporary, short-term care for patients with special mental health or social service needs, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services. Because it doesn’t exist in Central Oregon, hospital staff were left with two choices for Powell that Friday: Lock her up, or let her go.
What happened next
Powell told a nurse Friday night that she had flown into a rage and cut herself to diffuse the situation, according to medical records. That behavior is consistent with her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, Henderson said, and is a common symptom of the illness. “The reality is that people who are lethally attempting to kill themselves do not drive themselves to the (emergency room),” she said. “It would have been contraindicated and harmful for her to be repeatedly hospitalized.”
There aren’t any records of a phone call from Powell to the mental health crisis line on Saturday. But at 5:41 p.m., she was found in St. Charles Bend’s ER waiting room, unresponsive and with shallow breathing.
After Powell’s death, two of her sisters would find more than a dozen pill bottles in a bathtub in her tiny apartment. Powell had been diagnosed with a long-standing addiction to prescription pain medications, and doctors who cared for her believe she had overdosed on a sedative. Powell stayed at the hospital overnight, and progress notes show she was fully awake by the next afternoon. She said she was hopeless and wanted to kill herself. “I have nothing,” a nurse quotes her as saying. “I don’t want anything other than to be let to die.”
In the evening, she talked to a nurse’s assistant about her life. The nurse’s notes say Powell had “a family history of alcoholic parents, (molested as a child), father who beat her, inability to live on her current income, she is often cold, hungry and wearing dirty clothes, has a distrust that anyone can help her, was seeing a counselor that committed suicide.”
Powell also had a long history of anorexia nervosa, or starving herself, and told nurses that “eating in the hospital will get her used to food, and then she will not be able to live without it once she goes home.” She continued to talk about killing herself, or getting someone else to do it, Sunday night and Monday, according to hospital records.
The move
Doctors decided to move Powell to St. Charles’ acute mental health care facility, Sage View, on Monday. Powell spent the day telling hospital staff that she did not want to go there. Progress notes show she refused to promise that she wouldn’t hurt herself if she was transferred. Her doctor wrote that Powell “has us over a barrel.” “She, I think, really is very manipulative wanting only to be taken care of, but refusing any direct care claiming that she wants to kill herself,” Dr. William Campbell wrote. “I think we are faced with having to evaluate whether to commit her or not and with that moving her to Sage View.”
That evening, after a half-hour meeting with a clinical social worker, Powell changed her mind and agreed to “contract for safety,” promising she wouldn’t hurt herself on the way to Sage View.
At 8 p.m., a clinical social worker and a member of Sage View’s staff picked up Powell from her room and took her downstairs to get her purse, which was still in the admitting area. Contrary to normal protocols, they walked her through the hospital’s main lobby. She was not restrained because she was not violent, and the organization that certifies the hospital does not allow it, Henderson said. Bend psychologist Mike Conner said he could not comment on Powell’s case but did note that the chances for a person diagnosed with borderline personality disorder to commit suicide are low. Conner did not treat Powell. But he said that, in seven years of arranging transports in Portland for borderline personality disorder patients with recent suicide attempts, he never allowed a transport without some restraint. “What’s the problem with putting them on a comfy little gurney with a belt?” he said.
Henderson said that the hospital is reviewing its transfer policies. They have started putting every transfer patient in a wheelchair and will no longer take them through the lobby, she said.
Powell’s escorts had been specifically trained not to grab for or go after patients who run from staff, Henderson said. “Grabbing them is a dangerous thing to do,” she said. “We train to call for assistance.” So when she bolted from them in the lobby at about 8:10 p.m., the two called for Powell but didn’t chase her. She ran up a staircase to a balcony that leads to the hospital’s cafeteria, paused for a moment and then jumped over the railing. The 25-foot fall caused massive head trauma, neck and back fractures, and broken ribs, hospital records show.
Medics were with her almost immediately, performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR. She initially breathed on her own and moved a finger and her legs. Six minutes later, Powell was in the ER, blood leaking out of her left ear. She was put on life support, and doctors wrote that brain death was imminent. Her sisters, Bonda Powell, of Bend, and Jackie Feik, of Port Orchard, Wash., told hospital staff to honor Cindy Powell’s wishes to be an organ donor.
How she got there
Powell’s sisters both confirmed her reports that she’d been abused as a child. They grew up in violence with alcoholic parents. The family moved often, running from bill collectors, Feik said. The children regularly ran away and were placed in homes away from their parents at times. “She was real angry from a very young age,” Feik said about Cindy Powell.
Their father died in 1991, and Cindy Powell and her mother ended up in Redmond, where they became close, Bonda Powell said. Their mother cared for Cindy until she died in 2003. Then, Cindy turned to Bonda for help. “Bonda said, ‘She is a mess, she needs institutionalization,’” Feik said.
Cindy Powell met a man online and moved to Utah to be with him in 2004, the sisters said. During the relationship, she continued her suicide attempts, once on the wedding day of her boyfriend’s daughter. The two broke up, Feik said, and Cindy Powell moved back to Central Oregon in 2007.
On Oct. 30, just one day after she moved back from Utah, Powell turned up at Deschutes County Mental Health, complaining of anxiety problems and saying she’d come in because she was “trying to save my life.” Staff notes described Powell, then 50, as “older than her stated age, pale and thin.” The report shows that Powell was homeless at the time. She was given information about a Family Resource Center Web site and told to return after she became insured under the Oregon Health Plan.
Powell’s contact with Deschutes Mental Health dropped off for a full month. On Dec. 1, Bonda Powell called the Redmond Police Department to say her sister planned to “starve herself to death.” That day, police found Powell in her apartment, with a butcher knife, bleeding from several cuts to her head and appearing to be suffering the effects of a drug overdose. She had written “I tried” in blood on the wall above her bed, according to her sisters.
In and out of the hospital
Powell was taken to St. Charles Redmond, where doctors recommended transferring her to Bend. On Dec. 3, a clinician noted that Powell “states that she cut herself so she could be a martyr for those people who do not have access to medical care.”
Powell was moved to Sage View, where she met regularly with counselors. Three days later, Powell appeared to be feeling better. She told one staff member that the hospital stay had been “a turning point” and that she was excited about making friends in the facility. She was discharged shortly after.
For the rest of December, Powell went regularly to Deschutes County Mental Health for individual and group therapy sessions. She told counselors about her difficult childhood and detailed her dozens of earlier suicide attempts and about 10 hospitalizations. Records show that Powell reported eating only once a day. But by mid-December, she reported wanting to get herself “stabilized physically and mentally.”
January brought a turn for the worse, when Powell told counselors she was highly anxious, concerned about losing her Redmond apartment and ending up on the street. Doctors prescribed new medications, but it is unclear which ones she actually took; a record dated Feb. 20 notes that Powell had gone to the pharmacy but was unable to afford an $8 co-pay.
Two days later, Powell called the crisis line twice. During the first call at 5:48 p.m., notes say Powell said she’d called because she was experiencing severe mood swings and bouts of rage, and that while she was not thinking of harming herself, she wished that someone would harm her, according to Deschutes County Mental Health records. She was on the line for more than 40 minutes. By 8:05 p.m., when she called for a second time, Powell had cut her arm to “relieve some things” but did not intend to kill herself, the records show. After seven minutes of conversation, Powell said she planned to drive herself to the hospital and hung up the phone.
Seven hours later, at 2 a.m., Powell called the crisis line again and told the staff member on duty that she’d been to the hospital but said it was a “waste of time.” She agreed to call again on Monday to talk about a treatment plan.
But Monday came too late.
“We can all get caught up in the minutiae, but the mental health system failed this woman and continued to fail her,” Henderson said.
Left behind
Powell’s sisters spent much of last week together, gathering up Cindy’s unpaid bills and donating her meager belongings to a thrift store. They pored over detailed notes showing a desperate woman living a pained life. Powell wrote about her quest for help and inability to live on the $627 she got monthly from Social Security. Her rent alone was $350.
“She’s got ‘Please help me’ on so many of these papers that we have run across and, I mean, she knew she was sinking,” Feik said. Feik described her sister as “a real note taker” and said it had become a necessity. The medications she took affected her memory, Feik said, so Cindy Powell wrote down nearly everything she needed to remember. Powell wrote about doctor’s appointments and frustration about not getting better.
“It just feels like she can’t be the only one who experienced this,” Feik said, as she sat on a love seat in her dead sister’s apartment. It was decorated with a feminine pink and white bedspread, and a light coverlet over her small couch.
And before her sisters had even packed one box, Bonda Powell talked about the only thing her sister really wanted. “A couple of weeks ago, she said, ‘Bonda, all I want is to be happy, that’s what I ask God for every night.”
Cindy Powers can be reached at 617-7812 or cpowers@bendbulletin.com. Erin Golden can be reached at 408-2836 or egolden@bendbulletin.com.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Is Ohio More Socially Conscious Than Oregon?
I still believe in the basic goodness of the people in our state. I believe they truly care about all our citizens. There is always going to be controversy around certain issues that have political ramifications that we need to inspect and wrestle with as a community, but ensuring that the basic needs of our people are met is not one. I came across the following article on the internet and it caused me to think of how we are not asked to do what needs to be done to ensure our people’s needs are taken care of in Oregon. I believe that if we were, we would.
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Franklin County MRDD levy wins in landslide
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
By BONNIE BUTCHERThisWeek Staff Writer
Franklin County voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed Issue 29, a levy for the Franklin County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities.
With 90 percent of precincts reporting, the levy was winning handily with 165,968 votes (68.71 percent) to 75,595 votes (31.29 percent), according to unofficial results from the board of elections.
"We're very happy for the children and adults that we serve and their families and for all those staff and providers who support the children and adults of our community," said Jed Morison, MRDD board superintendent. "We've had absolutely great support from so many."
The permanent 3.5-mill levy will replace a 1.65-mill levy, Morison said. It will begin collecting in January 2009. A levy for 2.32 mills that voters approved in 1998 expires at the end of this year.
"The owner of a $100,000 house will contribute an additional $47.31 per year," according to campaign literature. "Even though the new voted millage will be less than the previous levies, the updated effective rate will provide some additional funds."
Those additional funds will not be used to create new programs, Morison said, but to serve the growing population of people who qualify for services. That population is growing as medical technology increases the life spans of people with disabilities, Morison said.
The board serves approximately 14,000 people with developmental disabilities from infancy to adulthood.
"Developmental disability originates in the developmental or childhood years and is expected to last indefinitely," Morison said, "so we have adults who've had disabilities since childhood who still benefit from our services."
Children are served through such programs as early intervention and preschool programs and school-age services for children with multiple disabilities, Morison said.
"Doctors say the greatest amount of brain development is in the first three years of life," Morison said, "so to provide that early intervention and support is very important."
Adult clients participate in training to gain employment, Morison said, or for people who aren't ready for employment, the board provides them with skills to help with their daily living.
Morison said the goal is to help give people the skills to be as independent as possible.
Morison said he is grateful to the Franklin County community.
"This is a wonderful community," Morison said. "Some say the character of a community is best determined by how people in need are supported. This is one more example of why our community is a great place to live."
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Franklin County MRDD levy wins in landslide
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
By BONNIE BUTCHERThisWeek Staff Writer
Franklin County voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed Issue 29, a levy for the Franklin County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities.
With 90 percent of precincts reporting, the levy was winning handily with 165,968 votes (68.71 percent) to 75,595 votes (31.29 percent), according to unofficial results from the board of elections.
"We're very happy for the children and adults that we serve and their families and for all those staff and providers who support the children and adults of our community," said Jed Morison, MRDD board superintendent. "We've had absolutely great support from so many."
The permanent 3.5-mill levy will replace a 1.65-mill levy, Morison said. It will begin collecting in January 2009. A levy for 2.32 mills that voters approved in 1998 expires at the end of this year.
"The owner of a $100,000 house will contribute an additional $47.31 per year," according to campaign literature. "Even though the new voted millage will be less than the previous levies, the updated effective rate will provide some additional funds."
Those additional funds will not be used to create new programs, Morison said, but to serve the growing population of people who qualify for services. That population is growing as medical technology increases the life spans of people with disabilities, Morison said.
The board serves approximately 14,000 people with developmental disabilities from infancy to adulthood.
"Developmental disability originates in the developmental or childhood years and is expected to last indefinitely," Morison said, "so we have adults who've had disabilities since childhood who still benefit from our services."
Children are served through such programs as early intervention and preschool programs and school-age services for children with multiple disabilities, Morison said.
"Doctors say the greatest amount of brain development is in the first three years of life," Morison said, "so to provide that early intervention and support is very important."
Adult clients participate in training to gain employment, Morison said, or for people who aren't ready for employment, the board provides them with skills to help with their daily living.
Morison said the goal is to help give people the skills to be as independent as possible.
Morison said he is grateful to the Franklin County community.
"This is a wonderful community," Morison said. "Some say the character of a community is best determined by how people in need are supported. This is one more example of why our community is a great place to live."
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