By Fedor Zarkhin
oregonlive.com
MULTNOMAH COUNTY, Ore. — Nurses working at Multnomah County jails called for multiple health officials to be fired in a letter to county leaders this week. They cited a litany of complaints, including years of inadequate staffing at the county’s jails, as well as mismanagement and forced overtime.
“We no longer have any confidence in select members of (Multnomah County Health Department) leadership,” the Oregon Nurses Association union wrote in its April 25 letter to the department’s director, the county sheriff and the five county commissioners. “We are concerned that our vulnerable community is at risk as well as our safety.”
Primary among the union’s complaints was the chronic low staffing level — an issue the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and others have previously said contribute to problems in the county’s jails. The “staffing crisis” has resulted in poor morale, unreasonable forced overtime, unsafe work conditions and “poor leadership” from several health officials, the union wrote.
Perhaps the most evident sign of the troubles in Multnomah County’s jails has been the spike in in-custody deaths in recent years, with 10 fatalities over the past two years, compared to zero in 2021 and 2020 and one in 2019. All of the deaths have been attributed to suicide, overdose or natural causes, except for one that remains under investigation.
The union said Zachary Myque Obiero, director of Corrections Health, should immediately be fired because of jail-condition issues identified in an outside review and because he allegedly created a hostile work environment and was negligent. The union also called for Nursing Supervisor Nicole Propert to be fired, citing frequent absences, DUI and reckless-driving arrests and union allegations that she has acted outside of her scope as a nurse.
In a statement, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said she is “very concerned about these allegations” and has asked to meet with nurses union representatives since they contacted her chief of staff April 9 to ask to speak at the commissioners’ next board meeting.
In an April 18 response, the union made clear it wasn’t interested in meeting with Vega Pederson, emails provided by the county show, demanding instead to be allotted time at one of the upcoming board meetings.
“So far they have declined to meet with me,” Vega Pederson said in her statement. “We very much need ONA to follow up and come to the table to meet with us so we can understand and address their concerns.”
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