Memo outlines problems at Parkside

(Tulsa-AP) -- Twenty-two employees of a Tulsa psychiatric hospital have signed a letter outlining practices they say could be illegal.

The Tulsa World says the June 16th memo indicates mentally ill patients were assigned to benches, couches and even the floor in Parkside Hospital's Crisis Unit.

The memo says assigning numbers on couches and benches has been common practice. They wrote that clients slept on the floor when those options ran out.

Parkside representative Sheila Curley says assigning room numbers to furniture was neither unsafe nor illegal because the hospital doesn't charge the state for beds in the unit.

She says the Crisis Unit would never turn away a patient in a crisis condition. She says those patients were in a safe environment where they couldn't hurt themselves or others.