Cedar Hills Hospital's Online Review Report Card

The staff were really friendly and helpful and I loved the music therapy sessions

Had no place to go when I left because I was referred to a shelter that was drug and alcohol infested. Also there were mentally ill individuals that were violent

I was suffering severe depression and suicidal thoughts. I thought removing myself from the means to self harm and stay in this hospital for 1-3 nights, those thoughts would abate. I called the front desk and was given the rundown on what to bring, what to expect, including that since I was checking in voluntarily, I WOULD BE FREE TO LEAVE AT ANY TIME provided I was not deemed a threat to myself or others AFTER A PSYCH EVALUATION. This is not true, at least in part. As soon as they'd taken away my possessions and penned me in a corridor I could not exit, I was told, ha ha, you actually can't leave, you are automatically on an involuntary hold, you are our captive. All this before I'd been told anything else about the place, and well before a doctor's evaluation (this happened after two terrifying hours of being imprisoned in that locked corridor, after pleading to be let out since I'd arrived voluntarily, after I hadn't officially checked in). The intake person on the phone did say I'd be able to leave at any time as a voluntary patient. He failed to mention they immediately incarcerate you upon arrival when you forfeit your possessions. There is this statement on the Cedar Hills site (FAQs): 'Once you have entered the facility you will be asked to remain in the building until a level of care recommendation has been made.' However, this little nugget appears after the part where they tell you you will first be assigned a room, meet with a financial counselor, get assessed by a mental health professional, informed about the various programs, and receive a full psychosocial assessment. Lies. You will be stripped of your belongings, sure, then kidnapped and held indefinitely with promises of next steps, and then more promises, and told your voluntary admission with voluntary exiting privileges are a sham. You are incarcerated, you are confined, you are penned in, you cannot leave. I'm hurting. I need help. I went to Cedar Hills because while I want to stay in a facility that can help me, I'm scared to death of being held against my will when I feel the time is right to leave. The fact that that they immediately imprisoned me, sprung on me an involuntary hold before any evaluation or orientation, was frustrating, terrifying, and dishonest. Sorry for the long review, but if you are in crisis, you are in need of a psych hospital, and you go to Cedar Hills voluntarily thinking you will be able to leave voluntarily, you'd be wrong. That is not their practice. The only way I was able to escape was because I have good people in my life who vouched for me, my spouse and my long-term psychologist. If you aren't lucky enough to be able to call on people like that, prepare yourself for possibly a long, involuntary, indefinite imprisonment. Adding this after my discovery today (review above was posted earlier). I went through my backpack they confiscated upon check-in. There are three $50 bills missing. They left me the one $20 bill and three $1 bills but stole $150 from me. (Adding a new entry after the pithy response) Shame on you for your pat, trite, boilerplate response to the abhorrent treatment I received and the theft that occurred. If you ever want to raise your profile, you might consider at the bare minimum writing a human response to your many, many 1-star reviews. A little humanity goes a long way, as you ought to know being in the behavioral health business. I received a call today regarding the theft, and of course the conclusion was that it didn't happen. I will file a police report for theft. I hope anyone else who gets robbed at Cedar Hills will do the same. I expect Cedar Hills will deny everything, that the police won't take it seriously, and that there will be no recompense or consequence for Cedar Hills. After all, they're dealing with a bunch of crazies, right? Who would believe them over the 'professional' staff? My only consolation is that Cedar Hills will have this charge on their record. Hopefully these complaints will add up and eventually, they'll be subject to investigation.

The food here is great! It could be a little cleaner and I wish they had more staff (not their fault obviously) but overall it was a good experience.

The staff, nurses and doctors were very inviting and welcoming. They knew how to keep some of the more unruly patients under control (big physical fight broke out as soon as I was admitted) and it got of hand, but thankfully security was called. As for food, everyone eats the same, but since it is lent, the chef made this AMAZING soup and salmon and rice for me. I probably should have mentioned it though at dinner because I got sliced turkey on my plate. My tummy kind of hurt from the overwhelming meat and potatoes (2 things I can eat like once or twice a week) I was discharged on Saturday and most likely could have used another day because today the nausea and sweating was wors. All I can say is speak up for yourself and also listen to the doctor👍

EDIT: CHH, I'm not remotely interested in taking the opportunity to address my concerns with you (Read: I'm not remotely interested in validating your low-rent PR maneuver), since you had that opportunity to listen to said concerns when I brought all of this to your attention before/during discharge. Review dropped from 2-stars down to 1-star for the cookie cutter reply instead of showing any level of contrition. __________________ I recently had the misfortune of being a patient at Cedar Hills for almost 4 weeks. Now, let me preface my review by first saying that I'm not someone who feels the need to write negative reviews for every company or organization that somehow wrongs me. Mistakes happen everywhere, employees sometimes get things wrong, and important details get overlooked by staff and management alike. I accept all of that as just a part of life. That said, the feckless ineptitude that most of the staff display is nothing short of systematic and, in my opinion based on observation, is entirely intentional. The impression of myself and a lot of my fellow patients was that the business model at Cedar Hills is carefully crafted in order to squeeze as much profit out of each patient as possible, while providing the absolute minimal of care that will still prevent them from being sued for malpractice or negligence. I got sick with a virus during my stay, which is apparently common there. The medical doctor met with me for less than 5 minutes, ran no tests, prescribed no medicine, and told me "my immune system will knock it out in a couple of days." I was sick for almost a week and a half, and I probably inadvertently infected half of my ward, including a woman with autoimmune disease. I hope that she's still okay. Their psychiatric "care" was far worse. True therapy there won't be found, and, again, is obviously not considered cost-efficient by Cedar Hills upper management. However, Dr. Palumbo and his nursing staff are very eager to over-prescribe medication, since they can bill insurance for medications. I'm 45 years old, and I've never been on more than 2 medications related to my mental health in my life. By the time I left Cedar Hills, I was on a whopping SEVEN different medications. SEVEN. I'm still trying to get my chemistry back to "normal," almost two weeks later. I was more suicidal in the final two weeks of my stay than I was on the former two weeks. Honestly, I was a threat to myself on release, but despite that, I was allowed to leave, perhaps the hospital had determined by that point that proper care, such as proper therapy and actually prescribing an ethical level of medication was some big threat to their profit margin. I would implore all who are reading this review to avoid Cedar Hills Hospital like the plague. Unity and Providence are both much better options for mental health treatment in the Portland area. Rated two stars because at least the food is good, and the cafeteria staff are all friendly (much more friendly than those actually entrusted to patient care).

Despite there being a small handful of good employees here, majority of them need some kind of training on human decency. Not only did I go my first three days here without medication due to staff specifically doctors not working on snow days and weekends? Consider me lucky though, because while I was there one woman did not receive her medication that was brought from home and was told by the staff that they lost it when in all reality it was downstairs in a locker but there was nobody working security to bring it into the ward and no other employees felt the need to go and receive it for her. Another woman I was hospitalized with was on her fifth day without medication dropped off by family she had been on for 10+ years for the same reason, when I was being discharged she had still not received them. There is a SERIOUS issue with patients receiving their personal items that are delivered or brought with them to the facility. I experienced and went on to witness almost every other patient experience the same thing in regards to getting our belongings, they are withheld in the “security lockers” outside of the different wards and nobody bothers to bring patients their belongings until they are having a complete mental breakdown screaming and crying for their things (in my case clean underwear, for others things such as any one of their clothing items in the meantime they wore paper scrubs, medications, books, etc). It is unacceptable the lack of any urgency from any of the staff to get literally anything done! Along with this I noticed an extreme pattern of patients being blatantly ignored by staff members, I myself stood up at the nurses desk almost daily for minutes and minutes being completely ignored by every staff member behind the desk while they engaged in irrelevant person conversations about their weekends and high school stories. They stopped in the middle of distributing medications to help themselves to some donuts while I stood in line for 35+ minutes behind one single other patient waiting for their medications. If you don’t want to take it from me then maybe you will believe the student nurse who was in our unit for her senior clinicals when she witnessed this blatant ignoring of myself by the staff members and then we had a full conversation where she expressed that she herself had witnessed the same patterns in previous weeks and had already written complaints about it through her program. I personally experienced two different units in my 9 day stay, mind you I was told I was on a 72hr hold from the day I entered, the first unit had atrocious conditions for any person especially one for someone who is attempting to recover, minimal to no heat during the snow days, a trashed common room, and minimal drink/snacks available 24/7, I wouldn’t have event realized how bad these conditions were if I was not moved to another unit during my stay. They told me one night with no warning or explanation that I needed to gather my things and I would be moving units, this was after 9pm. Of course I was grateful for my transfer once I had a better understanding but to spring that on someone randomly especially late at night and a person going through a severe mental health episode, I mean obviously that’s going to cause panic and heightened emotions. The staff could have handled the situation MUCH better. I do however find it unfair that different units in the same facility have completely different experiences as my second unit has copious snacks that were being refilled regularly, a more well stocked drink station, a cleaner more organized and more stocked day room, working heat, etc. Maybe this is super out there but I feel like it’s only equitable for all patients to have a similar experience especially in regards to things like the “amenities”. Although this was my only experience in a hospital like this, I heard from majority of the other patients that it was one of the best in the area which makes me actually sick to imagine what the conditions must be like there.

Bring your meds to this place. They may not tell you to but if you don’t they might let your blood pressure or beta blockers lapse and then your in a ton of a mess getting back on track Very badly operated unit

The program and providers clearly care deeply for patients’ recovery. The providers truly seemed dedicated to my well being and my time with them had a profound impact on my life. However, there is room for significant improvement among the administrative staff. There were very stressful delays when it came to coordinating my leave. I had to request resubmission of multiple forms because they weren’t filled out correctly/accurately. It really didn't seem like they cared or understood the urgency of the situation. Many of these interactions left me feeling unheard.

Safety is not there first priority at all. It's a joke.