NEWS RELEASES
Legacy Health Responds to ONA’s Statements About ICE Inside Legacy Facilities
Friday, Dec. 12, 2025
Attributed to Legacy Health
We are disappointed with the Oregon Nurses Association’s
approach to publicly share a letter through the media that we received on Dec. 10,
before we had the opportunity to respond with accurate data and information.
This approach of sharing incomplete and misleading
information perpetuates misinformation and creates additional fear and
confusion for our people and for patients who rely on us for care, potentially
causing patients to delay emergency care.
We are also concerned that this gives the incorrect
impression that we have experienced a substantial increase in law enforcement,
including ICE, in our facilities, which is not true.
We have not had any law enforcement officers come to our
facilities for enforcement actions.
The health and safety of the communities we serve remains
our highest priority at Legacy Health and we are committed to providing medical
care to everyone who needs it, including individuals who are in custody and
regardless of immigration or citizenship status.
We have reviewed our policies to ensure we are providing the
protection we can to impacted communities, while complying with both state and
federal laws. Our existing policies apply consistently to all federal, state
and local law enforcement agencies.
While we routinely review and update our policies to ensure
alignment with best practices (including alignment with local health systems)
and regulations, there have been no updates specific to ICE.
We take our obligation under HIPAA to protect our patients’
health information very seriously. We are committed to following all state
and federal laws that regulate the access and disclosure of protected health
information.
We have internal processes for our staff to follow if they
believe there has been a policy or HIPAA violation(s) so they can report the
incident, and we can investigate. This reporting can be done anonymously to
ensure that every employee feels safe submitting a report on behalf of a
patient or themselves.
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