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THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2021
Kelley: ‘It’s very therapeutic. I surprise myself every time I come out here’
Continued from Page A4
“I think that after what
I’ve experienced I would
have every excuse to wallow
in self-pity, but I told myself
from the get-go that the sun
rises and sets without me each
day,” Kelley said. “So it’s up
to me to make the most of it.
What good would it do me or
anybody else if I choose to
wallow with that?”
An unlikely friendship
While Kelley relearned
how to function, Gabe
Smith, the managing part-
ner of Bahama Boards Can-
non Beach, experienced a
life-changing transformation
of his own.
The volunteer fi refi ghter
worked at the surf shop in
2019 when it teamed up with
the Haystack Rock Aware-
ness Program’s beach wheel-
chair accessibility initiative.
People interested in rent-
ing one of the beach adaptive,
fat tire wheelchairs would call
the shop, and Smith would
help transfer them into the
chair and push it through the
sand.
“For two years I was lis-
tening to people say, ‘This
is the last time I’m going to
have my grandfather or dad
on the beach,’” Smith said.
“I was helping this 95-year-
old guy one day. Later on,
while working with the fi re
department, I went on a call
for a guy who passed away. It
was the same guy I had taken
out on the beach. His family
wasn’t kidding, this was his
last time seeing it.”
After helping count-
less families, Smith felt an
unstoppable pull to increase
Nikki Davidson/The Astorian
Gabe Smith carries Kelley to the water’s edge.
Gary Peterson Photography
Kelley is pushed in a beach wheelchair out to the water.
access to the beach.
“It’s aff ected me enough
to understand how it aff ects
everyone around them,”
Smith said. “I’ve been moti-
vated personally. I don’t have
a physical problem. I’ve got
nothing to complain about in
life so I can’t compare the dif-
fi culty of what people have to
go through.”
When Bahama Boards
obtained a surfboard spe-
cially crafted for people with
mobility issues, he recruited
as many people as possible
to take free adaptive surf les-
sons. When he came across
Kelley’s story on social
media, he reached out.
“He just really sold me on
this idea that we could make
a positive impact in the dis-
abled community and the
community of Oregon as a
whole,” Kelley said.
She agreed to give surfi ng
a try, launching a friendship
that’s created a ripple eff ect
through the Bahama Boards
adaptive surfi ng program.
A new purpose
An adaptive surfboard is
wider than a typical board,
adding stability and mak-
ing it possible for surfers like
Kelley to ride waves while
on their stomachs. From that
position, the surfer can pad-
dle through the water to catch
a wave.
“It’s very therapeutic,”
said Kelley, who started surf-
ing in May. “I surprise myself
every time I come out here.
It was really challenging in
the beginning, but each time
I come out here it becomes
more natural to me.”
A team of volunteers
makes Kelley’s training and
the adaptive surf lessons pos-
sible. They’ll hoist Kelley
onto the board, carry her out
into the water and spread out
so they’re able to intercept if
there’s a problem.
Kelley is now training
to make it to the Paralym-
pics. Earlier this month, she
received a sponsorship that
will award her with new
adaptive surfi ng equipment.
“I wasn’t an athlete before.
I grew up riding dirt bikes
and skateboarding and stuff
but never considered myself
an athlete,” she said. “I never
in a million years would have
seen myself even playing a
sport at all. Surfi ng, espe-
cially not. It’s been one of the
most amazing, exciting jour-
neys in my life.”
The accessibility
challenges
While
the
Bahama
Board’s adaptive surfi ng pro-
gram has grown to six stu-
dents, the team involved in
making it happen has realized
just how little access there is
to the beach for people living
with mobility issues.
There are no wheelchair
ramps that lead directly to
the water on North Coast
beaches. When Kelley comes
to Indian Beach for a surfi ng
session, a team of fi ve peo-
ple takes turns carrying her
wheelchair down the steep
and primitive path to the
water.
“It’s labor-intensive, all of
these people have to work,”
Kelley said. “I have to get
carried or I have to get pushed
super far in these beach chairs
that are provided by Cannon
Beach. If we had a power
chair, or an Action Trackchair ,
it would go a long way.”
“This is defi nitely not just
about surfi ng, it’s about beach
access,” Smith added.
According to the Ore-
gon Offi ce on Disability and
Health , 12 % of the state’s
population has a mobility
disability.
A survey conducted by
the offi ce reported that while
79% of adults in the state
engage in some type of exer-
cise or physical activity out-
side of work, only 65% of
disabled adults reported they
had exercised or engaged in
physical activity in the past
month.
Smith and Kelley believe
there is much more local and
state governments can do
to give people living with a
mobility disability options.
While they train for the
Paralympics together, the pair
is working to spread aware-
ness about the obstacles that
exist.
At this time, Manzanita,
Cannon Beach and Seaside
have rentable beach wheel-
chairs. The pair hopes to get
more adaptive equipment
like an Action Trackchair and
tools for other recreational
activities on the coast. They
hope one day a ramp will be
built that would allow people
living with a disability to get
to the water on their own.
“These are not inventions
we are trying to make up.
T hese currently exist in other
places,” Smith said. “They
don’t have them here. We
have some really ideal places
we could get them.”
Labor: There are nearly 200 open health care positions in the region
Continued from Page A1
“I think anybody who’s
been in either the service
industry, or the ‘helping
other people out’ industry
faced enormous, enormous
pressures over the past year
and a half,” said Amy Baker,
the executive director of
Clatsop Behavioral Health-
care, the county’s mental
health and substance abuse
treatment provider . “And I
think we’re seeing the cumu-
lative eff ect of that.”
Health care leaders say
limited housing and staff
burnout from the coronavi-
rus pandemic have height-
ened a staffi ng challenge
decades in the making.
Combined, there are
nearly 200 open health care
positions in the region as of
this week.
Over half of the positions
are in nursing and nursing
support, with the rest being
physicians, administration,
custodial staff and other
roles.
‘A statewide
phenomena’
Clatsop
Behavioral
Healthcare has 11 jobs
posted.
“One that is specifi c to
my industry, and this is prob-
ably true to other industries
too, but the rate of pay has
really not kept up with cost
of living,” Baker said. “So
the issue around not having
enough staff is a statewide
phenomena.”
Baker said she used feed-
back from her employees
to implement the four-day
work week, hoping to pro-
mote work-life balance in
the personally taxing work
of caregiving. Employees
work nine-hour days.
“We have a lot of really
compassionate people who
work here, and it’s hard to
absorb that suff ering and not
take it home with you,” she
said.
Several health care pro-
viders said the lack of aff ord-
able housing options narrows
the applicant pool. They said
people have turned down
jobs after searching for a
place to live and coming up
with nothing reasonable.
“We are defi nitely see-
ing staffi ng shortages,” said
Nancee Long, the direc-
tor of communications for
Columbia Memorial Hospi-
tal. “A lot of it is related to
the inability to fi nd hous-
ing locally — that has been
an issue. But I think a lot
of it is also due to the fact
that nationwide, people are
potentially leaving medi-
cine, due to COVID issues
and burnout issues. This is a
diffi cult position. I t’s a diffi -
cult job.”
Judy Geiger, the vice
president of patient care ser-
vices at Columbia Memo-
rial, said at a news confer-
ence this month with local
health care leaders that the
Astoria hospital is work-
ing on recruitment plans. As
of this week, they have 119
jobs posted on their website.
“We are, just like the
rest of the country, seeing a
larger vacancy rate in health
care jobs that is higher than
we’ve seen in the past many
years,” Geiger said. “People
are reevaluating their lives, I
believe because of the pan-
demic, and choosing to leave
health care settings in larger
numbers than they normally
would.”
Over 90 % of nurses at
Oregon Health & Science
University Hospital, the
state’s largest , reported men-
tal exhaustion, according to
data provided by the Ore-
gon Nurses Association this
month . Sixty percent said
they are considering leaving
the profession.
The state’s vaccination
mandate for health care
workers did not signifi cantly
contribute to the staff short-
age at Columbia Memo-
rial, Long said. Out of over
700 employees, Colum-
bia Memorial lost nine who
either refused to be vacci-
nated or had their exemption
requests denied.
Yakima Valley Farm
Workers Clinic, which has
locations in Astoria and
Clatskanie, said it only
lost one worker to the state
mandate.
Tina Foss, the vice pres-
ident of operations for the
region, said their six job
postings are unrelated to the
pandemic, and their team
has expanded since last year.
In the p ast four months, she
said they have had eight staff
leave and 10 join.
“We have experienced
a small number of turn-
over earlier in the year at the
height of COVID , but for us
that has settled down,” Foss
said.
She said they have added
internal support for staff ,
such as meals and employee
recognition, and that the sup-
portive community in Asto-
ria has had a positive impact
on retention.
Fresenius Kidney Care’s
Astoria location has seven
jobs posted.
In a written statement,
Casey Stowell, the regional
vice president of Frese-
nius Medical Care, the par-
ent company, said, “We are
off ering competitive salary
and benefi ts with the oppor-
tunity to make an impact in
the lives of our patients liv-
ing with kidney failure. ”
Local health care leaders
agree the labor shortage was
the result of years long issues
coming to a head.
“Nationally, there’s been
struggles to hire into the
health care fi eld — and it
was even before the pan-
demic hit — and then once
the pandemic hit it really
exacerbated that situation,”
Jason Plamondon, the chief
nursing offi cer at Providence
Seaside Hospital, said at a
news conference this month .
He said the hospital is try-
ing to be creative about hir-
ing bonuses and other incen-
tives. Their website lists a
nursing position in maternity
care with an $8,000 signing
b onus.
“There’s all sorts of
opportunities, so I think (it’s
about) just trying to sell our-
selves really as an ideal place
to come and work, and so far
we’ve been doing OK ,” Pla-
mondon said.
Providence Seaside has
over 450 employees and
had 50 jobs posted as of last
week.
Margo Lalich, the coun-
ty’s interim public health
director, said that recruit-
ment has been an issue for
the past few decades, origi-
nating in nursing schools.
“Part of the reason there
was a nursing shortage, and
it has sustained itself, is
because we have a nursing
faculty shortage across the
country. There are so many
vacancies,” Lalich said at
the news conference. “And
so there just isn’t the faculty
to educate the students and
then there aren’t the clinical
spots.”
‘A better balance’
The Oregon Nurses
Association recommends
higher salaries for nursing
faculty and the creation of
more scholarships and loan
forgiveness for nursing stu-
dents, especially students
of color, bilingual students
and people from rural areas
where the need is greater.
Despite the pandemic
inspiring more people to
apply for nursing school,
retaining new graduates
will still be a challenge, said
Kevin Mealy, the commu-
nications director for the
union .
“For older nurses, there
used to be a better bal-
ance between the amount
of patients you would send
home healthy, and the
amount of patients who
wouldn’t leave the hospital,
but that ledger has grown
very unbalanced so there’s
a lot more complicated chal-
lenging patients who you
may not be able to help, ”
Mealy said. “And I think
that causes an enormous
weight for people, espe-
cially who joined the pro-
fession in order to help treat
people and care for them
and help them get better. ”
Eighty-fi ve percent of
nurses at OHSU said they
are unable to use their vaca-
tion time or take a men-
tal health day, according to
union data. On top of shifts
over 12 hours long, Mealy
said, the conditions are
unsustainable.
“Because we’ve been in
this almost two-year cycle,
there has been no letdown,”
Mealy said. “So we’re ask-
ing people to run at sprint
speed for a marathon. And
that isn’t possible.”
In Clatsop County, t he
health care labor shortage
is in part a result of national
issues years in the making
that the pandemic intensi-
fi ed. With openings in every
local facility, competition is
steep.
For
those
working,
Mealy said competitive
wages and benefi ts pack-
ages matter, in addition to
supporting the mental health
needs of staff by expanding
services. Those are the kinds
of work environments appli-
cants look to fi nd , too.
“Employers are eager
to put up the ‘heroes work
here’ signs, and nurses have
answered the call.” Mealy
said. “But there does need
to be a point where we
acknowledge that this can’t
be a permanent state. W e
can’t live in this ‘Ground-
hog Day’ of going over and
above, every day. ”
Thank your favorite
first responders!
The Astorian will publish a National First Responders Day Salute section
on October 28, 2021 that includes your submitted photos and nominations
for local first responders. Submit your photo and information online today!
Deadline for submissions Friday, October 22 at noon.
https://eo-media-group.secondstreetapp.com/First-Responders-Day-Salute
One first responder in each category will be randomly drawn to win a free
dinner.
• Firefighters
• Law Enforcement
• Nurses & Medical Personnel
• EMTs/Paramedics
• Emergency dispatchers
• Volunteers
NATIONAL FIRST RESPONDERS DAY
October 28, 2021
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