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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 2021
Medicine: Clinic can serve between 300 and 350 people Hospital: Mask up
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Noice said — couldn’t get established before
in-person meetings were discontinued.
The clinic’s doors remained open, medica-
tion went to everyone who needed it, new peo-
ple signed up and care never ceased. Patients
still underwent urine analyses, met with coun-
selors — if only briefl y — and scheduled lon-
ger therapy sessions to take place later by
phone or video.
“But we didn’t build a community the way
that you normally see a community develop in
a clinic like that,” Noice said.
The pandemic has so defi ned the experi-
ence of Seaside’s staff and patients that it is
hard to tell whether unforeseen challenges —
for instance, the patient population has not
increased as fast as CODA had expected — are
due to COVID or the newness of the clinic.
Noice said the Seaside Recovery Center
did not see an unusually high rate of relapse
or ongoing opiate use among patients. What
CODA has seen across their clinics, including
Seaside’s, is that once people get into treatment,
they generally stay and do well. “We just didn’t
see people initiating treatment at the rate that
we anticipated we would,” she said.
The clinic can serve between 300 and 350
people. At the moment, they have about 120
patients, about 110 of whom are actively com-
ing, and 60% of those pass through the clinic
daily, according to Staci Donley, the senior
clinical manager .
“If you’re a person who has been struggling
with the idea of whether or not you want to be
sober, COVID was a lousy time to get sober,”
Noice said. “And so I worry a lot about how
many people out there could have benefi ted
from our help — maybe didn’t know that we
were still available — and I really hope we can
help more.”
‘Zoom fatigue’
When Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare’s
medication-assisted treatment took its group
counseling virtual, attendance remained at
nearly its normal level, hovering between eight
Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
The Seaside Recovery Center had to adjust operations due to the coronavirus pandemic.
and 12 patients — at least at fi rst, according to
Rick Martinez, the lead clinician. Most patients
were used to participating in group sessions
twice a week.
“Zoom was very productive in the begin-
ning,” Martinez said. “Clients just wanted
some kind of contact.”
As the pandemic dragged on, however,
“Zoom fatigue” began to set in and fewer
patients began showing up at sessions.
“Not having that (in-person) interaction
and peer support was really diffi cult for them,”
Martinez said.
The program, which works with prescrib-
ing doctors at Columbia Memorial Hospital
in Astoria and Oregon Health & Science Uni-
versity’s Primary Care Clinic in Scappoose,
has about 60 patients on the roster, about 45 of
whom work with Martinez. Clatsop Behavioral
Healthcare, Clatsop County’s mental health
and substance abuse contractor, has served
about 200 patients since the program opened in
2018, according to Dave Hsiao, an agency pro-
gram manager.
Suboxone contains buprenorphine and nal-
oxone, which, like methadone, are approved
by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to
treat opioid abuse. The medicine is intended to
reduce cravings and withdrawal from opioids.
Martinez was doing assessments by phone,
trying to bring in new patients that way, but that
also started to slow down. “Folks didn’t appear
to be seeking treatment like they were when
we were open,” he said, adding that his case-
load has recently increased. Some patients who
had managed to stay sober for a while before
COVID started using again during the pan-
demic, Martinez said.
When vaccinations got underway and Ore-
gon started opening up, patients began meet-
ing for group therapy again. “People were very
happy to be back — be back in the offi ce and be
back in the groups,” Martinez said. The nearby
Shilo Inn donated a large conference room for
their sessions to help them spread out.
Now, as the delta variant circulates and virus
cases climb, Martinez is watching attendance
drop again. At least two of his patients recently
contracted COVID, though not, he said, from
the group therapy.
Brown said she would deploy up to 1,500
Oregon National Guard personnel later this
month to help at hospitals across the state.
Clatsop County stopped providing
updates on local hospitalizations when
new virus cases are reported. The county’s
COVID-19 Public Information Hub has
posted a weekly total. From July 31 to Aug.
6, there were 10 local hospitalizations.
“Maintaining open inpatient beds for
emergencies, as well as COVID-19 patients,
requires that all elective procedures be
delayed at this time,” Erik Thorsen, Colum-
bia Memorial’s CEO, said in a statement .
The hospital has created a panel of
administrators and surgeons to determine
which scheduled surgeries are necessary
and which can be rescheduled .
Hospital offi cials urge people who test
positive for the virus to only seek care at
the emergency room if they are experienc-
ing severe symptoms. For those only mildly
ill or asymptomatic, they should quarantine
at home .
They also urge people not to go to the
emergency room or urgent care to be tested,
rather to contact the county P ublic H ealth
D epartment . Starting Wednesday, the
county will provide testing by appointment
only.
“We cannot stress enough the impor-
tance of vaccination and masking,” Dr.
Chris Strear, Columbia Memorial’s chief
medical offi cer, said in a statement. “The
most serious COVID cases we are treating
are those who are unvaccinated.”
Brown had ordered hospitals early in
pandemic to stop nonemergency proce-
dures to conserve medical supplies for virus
patients. Columbia Memorial also pulled
back on elective surgeries in November
during a wave of virus cases across the state.
Since the pandemic began, Clatsop
County recorded 1,475 virus cases and 11
deaths. The health authority recorded 42
new virus cases in the county on Friday and
35 new cases on Thursday.
Outbreak: Clatsop County has reported more than a dozen outbreaks
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T he staff members who
tested positive are not direct
caregivers and are believed to
have come in contact with the
virus from family members
outside of the facility, John-
son said .
Since learning of the out-
break, staff at the center have
transitioned to wearing N95
masks and face shields and
have stopped allowing out-
side visitors and vendors as
they wait for additional test
results.
“One diffi cult thing that
we’re having to do is keep the
residents from doing any com-
munal activities until we can
verify that all tests have come
back negative,” Johnson said.
Prior to the outbreak,
staff and residents wore sur-
gical masks and were able
to engage in socially-distant
activities within the facility.
Visitors had to wear masks
and submit to screening
for symptoms, temperature
checks and a questionnaire
assessing their potential for
virus exposure.
Clatsop County has
reported more than a dozen
recent outbreaks, but has
declined to provide details.
“We have 15 outbreaks at
this time. It’s a lot for Clatsop
County, but it’s not unique
to Clatsop County,” Margo
Lalich, the county’s interim
public health director, said
at a county Board of Com-
missioners work session on
Wednesday. “Those out-
breaks are multi sector: We’re
seeing it in the clinical set-
ting. W e’re seeing it in con-
gregant living. W e’re seeing
it in long-term care facili-
ties, as well as that sporadic
spread.”
Starting Wednesday , the
county Public Health Depart-
ment will end walk-in virus
testing and off er testing by
appointment only, Lalich said.
“Testing is less of a pri-
ority now, and it’s becom-
ing quite a challenge. We’re
doing hundreds of tests a day
in our community,” Lalich
said. “Some individuals pre-
fer to use testing as a way of
monitoring their status versus
getting vaccinated. It’s over-
whelming the system, not just
here but in other places.”
One reason for requiring
appointments is to determine
whether a person is appropri-
ate for testing.
“We want to be able to test
those most at risk and those
most vulnerable. We do not
want to be testing those who
are frequently showing up
just for screening because
they do not want to get vac-
cinated,” Lalich said. “Right
now, with our shortage of
resources, that’s not an appro-
priate use.”
Erick Bengel contributed
to this report.
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Homeless: ‘The city cannot solve this problem’
Continued from Page A1
services agencies and vol-
unteer groups. The liai-
sons help the homeless fi ll
out government forms and
medical documents and
provide vouchers to those
in need.
Even when housing
is found, the work often
continues.
“Working
with
the
unsheltered population, we
do measure if they go into
housing and retain hous-
ing after six months,” Mat-
thews said. “The people that
do fi nd housing, we try to
support them as much as we
can. So they stay housed,
with any kind of services
that we might be able to pro-
vide. Any we don’t provide,
we look someplace else. But
our goal is to, when some-
body goes into housing, to
stay in housing.”
Seaside’s push to address
homelessness grew amid
reports of people living in
cars, the streets and in the
woods. The topic was among
the top identifi ed issues at a
City Council goal-setting
meeting in January.
City Councilor Tita Mon-
tero and Mayor Jay Barber,
who organized the home-
lessness forums, met with
Police Chief Dave Ham,
Fire Chief Joey Daniels,
Public Works Director Dale
McDowell and Library
Director Esther Moberg
in late June to get a bet-
ter understanding of how
homelessness aff ects city
management and staff .
“What are they having to
do?” Montero asked. “What
are they having to face?”
The think tank — a
smaller group designed to
consider strategies — will
consist of Matthews, Mon-
tero, Barber and McDowell.
Homeless advocates Rick
Bowers and Nelle Mof-
fett and Monica Steele, the
assistant county manager,
are also signed on.
Ariel Nelson, a lobby-
ist from the League of Ore-
gon Cities, will participate,
Montero said.
“We’re going to make
recommendations for which
strategies we think the City
Council should consider for
implementation,” Montero
said. “We hope to have that
to the City Council by the
end of October.”
A Facebook page will
aim to bring diverse voices
together to meet the need.
“This was not an eff ort
to solve the homeless prob-
lem,” Barber said. “It is an
eff ort to gain greater under-
standing of the homeless
issue in our community, and
to help us to begin to work
together. The city cannot
solve this problem. It takes
a village and takes all of us
working together to really
begin to address the issue
in a way that progressively
helps.
“But that’s really what
this is all about.”
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partnership. With the help
of Grafton’s husband and
business partner, previously
unused space in the gallery
has been transformed into
an entirely new workspace
designed for Rund’s work.
“We talked about how
we’d worked together for so
long and how we know each
other, and that we thought
our personalities would be
a good fi t,” Rund said. “So,
we just were like, ‘Y eah,
let’s do it.’”
Grafton said she’d been
looking to do framing at
RiverSea for a long time,
and described a potential
partnership with Rund as
“symbiotic.”
“It’s really a complemen-
tary business for us. I’ve
wanted to off er framing for
a while but never had fi g-
ured out an eff ective way to
do it,” Grafton said. “I’ve
known her as long I’ve
had my business. Leann
has been known as the best
framer around, and I’ve had
my business since 1997.”
Though Rund expects
to have many returning cli-
ents, she hopes to attract
new customers seeking
design guidance and origi-
nal creations, as opposed to
refurbishing old pieces or
frames.
“What I feel like I’m
really good at is design,
that’s the more import-
ant part of the framing pro-
cess,” she said.
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