The people who arrive at their doors often come with traumatic injuries or chronic, untreated conditions. INVERNESS JAIL: A recently retired staff doctor described to WW the problems at Portland’s troubled jails. “But we also know that the work our employees continue to do every day saves lives.” “Corrections Health agrees that the more staff and resources we have to serve our clients, the more we can do to help them and keep people healthy,” it reads, in part. In a separate statement, the county health department also acknowledged the problem. “I will continue to focus efforts across the county to support this team.” “Corrections Health is a challenging place to work and definitely needs additional staff,” she said, offering a laundry list of initiatives she’s supporting to increase staff, including budget increases, pay raises and retention bonuses. In a statement to WW, Vega Pederson conceded the staffing problem is real. But jail doctors are hired and fired by the Multnomah County Health Department, overseen by County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson. Jail conditions are the responsibility of Sheriff Nicole Morrissey O’Donnell. But, jail staff say, the facilities haven’t felt safe. No one is alleging that errors in patient care led to inmate deaths. Meanwhile, there’s been such a shortage of frontline nurses that those who remain are often required to work 16-hour double shifts, a practice the state prohibits at public and private hospitals. As a result, medical appointments became scarce and wait times to see a doctor sometimes extended to more than a month. The county scrambled to hire a single replacement from a staffing agency, but she was quickly overwhelmed, staff says. For a few weeks over the summer, there wasn’t a single psychiatric nurse practitioner left working in the buildings, staff tells WW.

The lack of physicians was compounded by a shortage of specialized health care providers, who prescribe psychiatric medications for inmates who demonstrate mental illness-nearly a third of the jail population.

Multnomah county jail roster oregon