Page 10A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Friday, November 11, 2016
VA works to attract more
veterans to home-based care
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
Many veterans don’t
enroll for health care with
the Department of Veterans
Affairs.
In one survey of aging
Utah veterans, “70 percent
had never accessed the VA,”
said Kris Patterson-Fowler,
chief of Home & Community
Based Services at the Jonathan
M. Wainwright Memorial
VA Medical Center in Walla
Walla.
That’s a head scratcher
and something the VA seeks
to change with an outreach
effort called Cover to Cover.
The VA Salt Lake City
Health Care System in Utah
launched a pilot in 2013 and
now the Walla Walla center
has joined the program, along
with VA facilities in four other
states. The program especially
targets older veterans who
need home-based health
services.
This isn’t an addition of
services. There are already a
smorgasbord of home-based
programs — 13 in all —
including access to home
health aides, respite care,
hospice, caregiver support,
adult day care, palliative care
and home-based primary care.
However, many veterans
don’t use those programs or
any other VA services.
“There are misunderstand-
ings,” Patterson-Fowler said.
“Some veterans believe that if
they didn’t serve in conflict, if
they weren’t in war, they are
not eligible for service.”
With the Cover to Cover
program, the VA relies on
community agencies that
serve the aging population to
spread the word to veterans
that they are missing out.
“They ask the question,
‘Are you a veteran?’” Patter-
son-Fowler said.
If the veteran says yes, he
or she is told of the array of
VA services on tap and given
information about eligibility.
If they wish to enroll, they are
fast-tracked into the system.
Patterson-Fowler
said
her own father, a Vietnam
veteran, didn’t enroll into
the VA system until the very
end of his life. The retired
commercial airline pilot had
considered VA health care as
something for veterans who
didn’t have insurance, said his
daughter.
As he lay dying of cancer
at the Kadlec Medical Center
in 2008, he finally decided to
enroll.
“When my dad was dying,
he had all his private insurance
and his Medicare benefits,”
said Patterson-Fowler, who
has worked at the Walla Walla
VA for 13 years. “He’d never
tapped in to VA resources. We
were talking about it. He really
couldn’t go home to Wallowa
Lake to die. He really needed
inpatient care. We expedited
the enrollment process.”
Her father was moved to
the Walla Walla VA two weeks
before his death — it had an
inpatient unit then — and he
received end-of-life care.
About 18,000 veterans are
enrolled in the Walla Walla
VA’s service area, which
includes Umatilla County.
Eva Morales, administra-
tive officer for Walla Walla’s
Home and Community Based
Services programs, is helping
implement Cover to Cover.
Morales, a veteran, said it took
her years to actually enroll
even though she worked for
the VA.
“As a veteran myself, I was
one of those 70 percent up
until a few months ago,” she
said. “One day I just decided
I should.”
She knows there are plenty
of others out there who could
benefit.
“I have friends in the
community who think it’s too
much of a hassle or they don’t
think they deserve it,” Morales
said. “Or they’re afraid of the
paperwork – they think it’s a
monster.”
She said the enrollment
process is increasingly more
user friendly.
“With the new online
system, it’s relatively easy,”
she said. “It’s still a task, but
it’s not that difficult.”
Brian Westfield, director
of the Walla Walla VA, said
the in-home programs such
as Home Based Primary Care
keep veterans in their homes
and away from the emergency
room. Technology plays a
part.
“We can put an apparatus
in their home on their phone
system. On a daily basis, it’ll
start beeping at them. They’ll
need to go to the phone and
answer questions such as
“What is your weight today?”
and “Any difficulty breathing
today?”
He said registered nurses
who monitor the responses
will call the veteran if some-
thing isn’t quite right.
Some VA services aren’t
offered by Medicare or private
insurance.
“One of the very unique
things that VA is able to offer
that Medicare doesn’t provide
and that hospice isn’t able to
do is that when an individual
is receiving in-home hospice
care and care rises to a point
where they are no longer
safe to be in the home, the
VA pays for end-of-life care
in a nursing home,” Patter-
son-Fowler said.
The Walla Walla VA
contracts with nine nursing
homes
in
Hermiston
(Regency),
Lewiston,
La Grande, Walla Walla,
Tri-Cities and Yakima and is
looking at establishing new
contracts in Pendleton, Selah
and Colfax.
Another program — the
Homemaker Home Health
Aide program — allows for
a non-skilled caregiver to
go in and help veterans with
such activities as toileting,
showering,
dressing,
grooming, laundry, meal prep
and transportation to medical
appointments.
“That allows them to
stay in their home,” Patter-
son-Fowler said. “Private
insurances usually do not
cover this. Medicare doesn’t
cover that service either. This
is a unique service the VA can
offer to our enrolled veterans.”
Aaron Harris /The Canadian Press via AP, File
In this 2006 file photo, Leonard Cohen poses
in Toronto. Cohen, the gravelly-voiced Ca-
nadian singer-songwriter of hits like “Hal-
lelujah” and “Bird on a Wire,” has died, his
management said Thursday.
Leonard Cohen
dead at age 82
By ANDREW DALTON
and ROBERT JABLON
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES —
Leonard
Cohen,
the
baritone-voiced Canadian
singer-songwriter
who
seamlessly blended spir-
ituality and sexuality in
songs like “Hallelujah,”
“Suzanne” and “Bird on a
Wire,” has died at age 82,
his son said Thursday.
“My father passed away
peacefully at his home
in Los Angeles,” Adam
Cohen said in a statement.
“He was writing up until
his last moments with his
unique brand of humor.”
Cohen, also renowned
as a poet, novelist and
aspiring
Zen
monk,
blended folk music with
a darker, sexual edge that
won him fans around the
world and among fellow
musicians like Bob Dylan
and R.E.M.
He remained wildly
popular into his 80s, when
his deep voice plunged to
seriously gravelly depths.
He toured as recently
as earlier this year and
released a new album,
“You Want it Darker,” just
last month. Adam Cohen
said his father died with
the knowledge that he’d
made one of his greatest
records.
Cohen’s “Hallelujah”
went from cult hit to
modern standard, now
an unending staple on
movies,
TV
shows,
YouTube videos, reality
shows and high school
choir concerts.
Cohen, who once
said he got into music
because he couldn’t make
a living as a poet, rose to
prominence during the
folk music revival of the
1960s. During those years,
he traveled the folk circuit
with younger artists like
Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joan
Baez and others.
His contemporary Kris
Kristofferson once said
that he wanted the opening
lines to Cohen’s “Bird on
a Wire,” on his tombstone.
They would be a perfect
epitaph for Cohen himself:
“Like a bird on a wire,
like a drunk in a midnight
choir, I have tried in my
way to be free.”
“Hamilton” star and
creator
Lin-Manuel
Miranda quoted those
lines on Twitter Thursday
night as one of many
paying tribute to Cohen.
Judy Collins, who had
a hit with Cohen’s song
“Suzanne,” once recalled
he was so shy that he quit
halfway through his first
public performance of it
and she had to coax him
back onstage.
Like Dylan, his voice
lacked polish but rang
with emotion.
In 2016, Dylan told The
New Yorker that Cohen’s
best work was “deep and
truthful,
“multidimen-
sional” and “surprisingly
melodic.”
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Veteran Tom Curtiss of Pendleton looks at Pilot Rock FFA students while entering the gymnasium for a Veterans
Day Ceremony on Thursday at Pilot Rock High School.
VETERANS: High school band, chorus performed
DOCK: Columbia River
tribes objected to the terminal
Continued from 1A
Continued from 1A
and family, and carry out the
nation’s missions in places
such as the desert of Afghan-
istan, where temperatures
reach 120 degrees.
Oregon National Guard
soldiers served in military
conflicts going back to
World War II, and he said the
state has one of the nation’s
highest deployment rates. The
Chinook helicopter unit out of
Pendleton, for example, has
deployed three times in 15
years.
Ford also thanked the
students and people of Pilot
Rock for the ceremony. He
said the show of appreciation
means a great deal and vali-
dates that sacrifice.
The concert showcased
performances from the high
school band and chorus, as
well as kindergarten and grade
school classes. The primary
students delivered “God Bless
America,” “You’re a Grand
Old Flag” and more. And the
band and chorus took on more
challenging fare, including
“Homeward Bound” by the
Mormon Tabernacle Choir
and the “Armed Forces
Salute.”
Bob Deno, Pilot Rock
city councilor, attended. He
served in the U.S. Navy and
recalled a unique moment of
his service from 1958 when
he flew around the world —
backward.
Deno was part of a crew
on a Douglas A3D bomber
that took off from the deck
setting a legal precedent for
future development.
“This dock site and one
adjacent are the only two
remaining dock sites for
major industrial devel-
opment in the John Day
Pool,” said Gary Neal,
general manager at the
Port of Morrow. “Without
this potential dock site, our
ability to create jobs, grow
economic development and
attract new businesses is
severely curtailed.”
The dock was slated to
be built along a stretch of
river where Neal said the
port bought land from the
U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers in 1967, following
construction of the John
Day Dam. The now-flooded
land was supposed to be
used for “port or industrial
facilities,” under the terms
of the purchase.
The port has already
invested more than $50
million at the site, including
a rail loop designed so that
trains could transfer their
shipments. Neal said he
believes the terminal was
rejected due to the political
pressure surrounding coal
exports.
“We hope to continue
into the future to develop
our waterfront as it was
intended to be used,” he
said.
Columbia River tribes
objected to the terminal,
arguing it would inter-
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Vietnam veteran Bob Deno sings the National Anthem along with his wife, Rose,
during a Veterans Day ceremony at Pilot Rock High School.
of the aircraft carrier U.S.S.
Lexington about 152 miles
off the coast of Guam for a
reconnaissance mission.
“I was busy with the navi-
gation and sat back-to-back
with the pilot,” Deno said. “I
was too busy to move.”
The jet bomber returned
190 miles from Guam and
required 11 “stops” to re-fuel
while in flight.
“My heart stopped every
time we did it,” Deno said.
Deno said he faced
backward the whole way
and Admiral Arleigh Burke
submitted paperwork to
Guinness World Records for
the achievement.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Veterans Tom Tangney, left, and Paul Ellis talk about
the famous Korean War era pack horse, Reckless, after
eating breakfast Thursday at Pilot Rock High School.
fere with their fishing
rights guaranteed by the
Treaty of 1855. Chuck
Sams, spokesman for
the Confederated Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation, said they are
not opposed to economic
development as long as it
doesn’t violate treaty rights.
“It just depends on the
type of commodity they’re
transporting, and the infra-
structure that needs to be
put in place,” Sams said.
The CTUIR does not
approve of the Columbia
River as a corridor for
dangerous fossil fuels,
Sams said. He added the
tribes look forward to
working together with the
port in the future.
Lighthouse Resources
announced in October it
would no longer pursue the
Morrow Pacific Project.
The company is currently
exporting coal through
Westshore
Terminals
in Vancouver, British
Columbia.
Bill
Ryan,
deputy
director of operations for
the Department of State
Lands, said the agency is
pleased to have the legal
issues resolved. Though an
unusual circumstance, he
said the agreement reached
with the port, tribes and
others is appropriate for the
situation.
———
Contact George Plaven
at gplaven@eastoregonian.
com or 541-9636-0825.