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It’s worth counting the high-ranking state government officials to leave or be taken down by scandals at the Oregon State Hospital since deputy hospital superintendent Derek Wehr was put on paid administrative leave in 2023 pending an investigation of workplace allegations against him.
- Hospital Superintendent Dolly Matteucci
- Hospital Superintendent Sara Walker
- Oregon Health Authority Director Sejal Hathi
- Hospital Superintendent Sean Murphy (after just one month on the job)
All while Wehr sat at home, taking a $210,000 taxpayer-furnished salary — and waiting to learn his fate at the hospital where he’d worked for 30 years.
He may have finally gotten an answer last week. Not long after a Lookout Eugene-Springfield reporter filed a public records request with the state for Wehr’s employment records, he received notice that the investigation had been concluded. His fate? A predissimal hearing scheduled for Sept. 8 — indicating the state wants to fire him.
The officials planning Wehr’s firing may be better served looking inward, and asking how they — not Wehr — have damaged the credibility of the state’s largest psychiatric hospital, which has seen five unexpected patient deaths since November 2023. The string of deaths started after Wehr first raised concerns about patient care at Oregon State Hospital, and after he was placed on paid administrative leave.
There is plenty we don’t know about Wehr’s case, to be sure. Internal records indicate he was being investigated over allegations of drinking problems and an inappropriate relationship with a staffer, both of which he denies. There were less explosive claims, too, including that he used an unprofessional tone when talking with hospital staff about safety concerns. Maybe there is more to these allegations.
But on what matters most — how the hospital has been run, whether patients and staff are safe — Wehr seems to have more credibility than the state.
There have been some signs of improvement recently. Hathi’s resignation this summer was a necessary step toward accountability, after she badly botched her responses to state lawmakers’ questions about the hospital’s problems. And we applaud the increasing number of lawmakers beginning to pay attention, including some calling for more legislative oversight.
But the state hospital is currently being led by an interim superintendent as a direct result of the patient death scandal. And the hospital still appears to be under a grand jury investigation in Marion County.
It’s a time when seasoned leadership is sorely needed. And it makes for strange timing to prepare to fire Wehr.
While workplace investigations into government employees are typically shielded from public view, there’s a lot at stake for the state in this case. If Wehr is found to have committed serious misconduct, punishment up to dismissal would be appropriate.
But the public deserves an explanation for why the state paid Wehr more than half a million dollars to stay home for three years while the health authority cycled through directors and hospital superintendents who all seemed to have missed the warning signs he reported.
And if all that comes from the investigation after so long is hearsay or unverified claims, then maybe it’s not Wehr who deserves punishment, but the people who failed to act on his concerns before patients died.
