Outsider:  Indeed,the cost of keeping the Hospital open is astronomical.  A five employees to each patient ratio is simply unbelieveable.  The bond debt service on $130 million is huge.  As I've said so many times (some suggest too damn many times), the Hospital was a monumental blunder which continues to preclude providing the community-based services needed to provide the support, service and treatment so badly need by the thousands of mentally-ill Oregonians..many of them "out on the streets" on this cold, rainy morning.  

I suggest we need to, and I suggest we can, find a compromise solution to a) close the hospital without "dumping dangerous patients on the street" as the fear-mongers warn, b) provide funding for those badly needed community-based services and c) still save millions of dollars.

Because you've made a mistake (building the hospital), doesn't mean you have to compound that mistake year after year by refusing to acknowledge that error and seeking ways to correct it.