A majority of the union nurses working in Multnomah County detention facilities called on the county Thursday to fire two of its top supervisors of health care inside jails.
FILE - A man walks into a Multnomah County jail cell after being arrested on Sept. 21, 2018 in Portland, Ore.
Jonathan Levinson / OPB
The Oregon Nurses Association, which represents the jail staffers, says 41 nurses voted that they have “no confidence” in Corrections Health Director Zachary Myque Obiero and nursing supervisor Nicole Propert, who they accused of absenteeism and negligence.
The nurses detailed their concerns in a letter to Multnomah County Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell and the county board of commissioners.
They said Myque Obiero “watched sports in his office daily” while ignoring staff’s concerns about worker shortages and deteriorating conditions in the jails.
Propert, they said, was frequently absent and unreachable by phone during business hours, and behaved erratically.
In November 2023, Propert was arrested in Hood River County and charged with driving under the influence. She pleaded not guilty, according to court records. In March, she was arrested in Multnomah County for reckless driving, a misdemeanor. The county declined to charge her.
A defense attorney representing Propert in the ongoing DUI case did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Everything has been neglected’
The nurses said they held the vote of no confidence after private meetings with the county’s human resources department and the county health division didn’t resolve their concerns about staffing, morale and the leadership team’s competence.
The nurses care for adults at Inverness Jail and Multnomah County Detention Center, and youth at the Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Center.
Their team, a division of the Multnomah County health department, has been dangerously short staffed for years, they alleged.
Pauline Sinclair, a registered nurse, has worked at the juvenile detention center for the past 20 years. Recently, she said, morale has plummeted because nurses haven’t been able to provide safety for their patients.
“Everything has been neglected,” she said.
In the summer of 2022, she said, management failed to hire replacements after two nurses retired. That left the juvenile detention center without a nurse working the day shift for three months.
Youth in the facility were supposed to receive medications three times a day. Without a regular daytime nurse, many of the youth were forced to delay or skip doses “which included mental health medications, antibiotics some of the youth were on, pain medications,” Sinclair said. “There was a lot of distress from several of the kids.”
In the county’s two adult jails, the health division has relied heavily on forced overtime and short-term contract staff to fill shifts. In 2023, nurses worked a total of 563 forced overtime shifts, according to the nurses’ union.
2nd attempt to call for change in leadership
The nurses’ letter is the second time this year that people familiar with the detention facilities have said a change in leadership is needed to protect the safety and rights of Multnomah County inmates and juveniles in detention.
Last year, Morrisey O’Donnell hired a technical expert to review safety and health practices in the jails after a wave of suicides and overdoses.
That expert found numerous lapses, among them a dangerous practice of putting people at risk of suicide in isolation cells. In a January report to the sheriff, the expert’s first recommendation was for the county to hire “an independent, knowledgeable health services administrator” to ensure the county is meeting constitutional standards.
Through a spokesperson, Sheriff Morrisey O’Donnell said she “does not hold a position on the ONA’s letter,” and characterized it as a labor relations matter for the county to review.
Through a spokesperson, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said she’s asked to meet directly with ONA representatives to discuss their concerns, but was unaware of the full scope of the allegations against the department’s leaders until receiving the letter.
Records show Vega Pederson and Multnomah County Public Health Director Rachael Banks offered to meet with the nurses earlier this month.
“I am eager, and totally committed, to quickly understanding concerns and diligently working towards resolution,” Banks wrote in an email to ONA on April 10. “This is a priority for me.”
The nurses’ union representative, Daisy Hernandez, declined those meetings, saying the nurses wanted to brief all of the county commissioners in a public meeting. Vega Pederson’s staff said that wasn’t possible without meeting with her staff first, the records show.
“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,” Vega Pederson said Thursday.
The Health Department has been working to increase staffing, security and recruitment, Vega Pederson said, hiring 14 new staff members and rehiring 15 people for on-call positions.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the resolution of Nicole Propert’s arrest for reckless driving. The district attorney declined to file charges.