There’s almost always a waiting list to get into the Deschutes Recovery Center, the inpatient, secure psychiatric treatment facility in Bend. That waiting list is a severe problem.
The center cares for people diagnosed with acute mental illness. It can treat and house 16 patients. Some are civilly committed. Some are placed there in hope that with treatment they can stand trial. And some are placed under the jurisdiction of the state Psychiatric Security Review Board.
Having a waiting list means people in Deschutes County with acute mental illness are not getting the kind of care they need in the kind of facility they should.
If you think that is bad for Deschutes County, Deschutes has it good compared to Jefferson and Crook. They don’t have access to beds. There are people out on the streets in those counties with severe mental illness with no good place to go, Rick Treleaven, CEO of BestCare Treatment Services told us. Providers BestCare and Telecare have teamed up with Deschutes County and PacificSource to apply to the Oregon Health Authority for money to open another 16-bed facility.
It would be in Redmond. It would serve people from all three counties. It would mean a critical doubling of capacity to serve patients who really need it.
Deschutes County is putting in about $3 million in state dollars it has already received for mental health. Jefferson and Crook are putting in $1.5 million each of their state dollars. The total price tag is some $14 million.
Patients in these facilities live there 24/7. They don’t leave. They learn to live with others. They get medication and treatment. Some are able to transition to less secure living situations.
You may wonder, as we did: Why 16-bed facilities? There’s basically a federal rule from the 1960s that limits the size. There can be exceptions, but above 16 beds and the federal dollars don’t flow to help pay the costs of operation. That cap is designed to protect patients. Keep it small. Keep it personal.
Building more 16-bed facilities may be more expensive per patient than building a single, larger facility. It can help protect patients, though, from being warehoused, or worse.
The Oregon Health Authority told us Thursday afternoon that no decision had been made on the application.
We have no idea if the region is going to get this money for this facility. If it doesn’t, we need to keep trying to find ways to make it happen.
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The Bend City Council is expected to vote soon to put a levy on the May ballot for Bend Fire & Rescue. The current levy is 20 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. The levy renewal request would replace the existing rate at a new rate of 76 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. The increase in the levy amount is more than triple the current rate. The levy would be going up faster than the rate of population increase in Bend.
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