?State report says Oregon needs nearly 3,000 more beds for behavioral
health treatment

The state will need more than half a billion dollars to increase the
system that much, it says?

?Oregon needs to be able to treat nearly 3,000 more people to adequately
meet the demand for  residential mental health and addiction treatment ,
an Oregon Health Authority report released Thursday found. 
That means Oregon needs nearly 8,000 beds in all, an increase of 70%
from the 4,800 beds it has now. The current capacity includes care for
people in adult foster homes, residential facilities, the Oregon State
Hospital, psychiatric hospital care and other programs. Expansions
currently planned for existing facilities will enable providers to treat
nearly 5,200 patients. 

The report estimates it would take more than $500 million over at least
five years to expand and set up new facilities. But that does not
include operational costs and salaries. 

Gov. Tina Kotek ordered the Oregon Health Authority to commission the
report. It hired Public Consulting Group, a private consulting firm
headquartered in Boston that has done similar work in Washington and
other states. 

?Too many Oregonians are struggling to get the help they need for a
mental health or addiction challenge, and the state needs to lead with a
strategic approach to addressing these gaps in health care,? Kotek said
in a statement. ?We need more resources, to be sure, but we also need
better data so we can better serve Oregonians.?

The study takes into account the expected demand through the fall of
2025 and costs to add enough beds across different levels of residential
care. The study did not look at outpatient behavioral health treatment
needs. 

One of the biggest gaps is care for people who need residential
addiction treatment. The preliminary estimates show the state needs
another 1,160 to 2,170 more beds. That?s about twice the state?s current
capacity of nearly 1,610 beds. Residential programs provide the most
intensive and structured environment, with 24-hour observation,
monitoring and treatment."

https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2024/02/01/state-report-says-oregon-
needs-nearly-3000-more-beds-for-behavioral-health-treatment/

Part of our governor?s response to this report was. ?Good news! We
have 40 more treatment beds going online later this year.?

The retrumplicans want to return to hardcore incarceration. We?re
paying close to the national average to lock people up. It costs about
$120/day. The advantage is that this is proven method to get the addicts
to keep it on the down low. The biggest disadvantage is that, as a
general rule, it just makes the addicts problems worse. The cheapest
inpatient drug treatment program is about $200/day. The advantage is
that we get better addicts. The people who are ?cured? frequently switch
to other drugs.

I met an example of this when I was living in Bend. This couple had
been hardcore heroin addicts, but they got tired of going through forced
withdrawal. But, they had been through a lot of treatment and they
became better addicts. They selected Bend because it was the first place
they found where no one was offering to sell them heroin at the bus
station. In Bend they were mostly using alcohol, pot and meth. They were
able to hold down real jobs. He was supplementing his income with
shoplifting. Alcohol is an expensive addiction. Most of the men in his
family died young from this addiction. The total cost to the citizens
was still less than any of the other options.

According to our local media our police are experiencing deep
anguish because we don?t have adequate treatment options to offer the
people they deal with.
There are no magic cures. No one is this country is going to make
this problem go away. The current debate in Salem is really about the
cheapest ways to make the problem less visible. It?s going to be some
combination of treatment and incarceration. The people who don?t want to
get themselves involved in that mess will make themselves less
visible?if they can.

TB