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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 29, 2018)
NORTHWEST East Oregonian Page 2A Wednesday, August 29, 2018 Oregon’s only heart transplant hospital suspends procedures PORTLAND (AP) — The only hospital in Oregon that does heart transplants is sus- pending its program for 14 days because of a shortage of doctors qualified to do the spe- cialized surgery. The move leaves more than two dozen patients to decide whether to wait out the temporary shut-down or seek care at another medical center, a newspaper reported Tuesday. Oregon Health & Science University in Portland made the decision to temporarily freeze its program after three cardiologists on the transplant team left or announced plans to leave, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported . OHSU won’t evaluate new patients for a transplant, accept donor hearts or perform any transplant surgeries for two weeks. Cardiac patients who don’t need trans- plants can still be treated at OHSU, includ- ing for such procedures as pacemaker implantation, said Renee Edwards, chief medical officer for OHSU Healthcare. The transplant team is also adequately staffed to follow up with anyone who’s recently received a new heart, she said. During this 14-day period, Edwards said, administrators will focus on recruiting transplantation and heart failure specialists to run the program, including in surgery and post-operative care. The suspension could extend beyond two weeks, Edwards said. “It was not an easy decision to make as the only heart transplant center in Oregon. We feel a tremendous amount of responsi- bility,” Edwards told the newspaper. Edwards said the departures on the heart transplant team were primarily for career and family reasons. Two will stay on at OHSU until the end of September. When executives learned of the pend- ing changes Friday, they made the decision to suspend the program, which has run for 32 years, out of concern that patients who undergo surgery wouldn’t have someone to guide their care afterward, the newspaper reported. Eighteen heart transplants were done at OHSU in 2016 and 30 more were completed at OHSU in 2017, according to federal data. For those on the transplant list, the news is devastating. Dianna Howell, 58, of Albany, was diag- nosed with heart failure in 2016 after pass- ing out at work. She has been on the heart transplant list for 13 months and was told when she was placed on it that she had about 18 months to live. “It was a transplant or hospice,” she said. Howell learned Friday at her monthly appointment that her doctor, Dr. Jonathan Davis, was leaving the program, and two others are also leaving. On Saturday, they got a call from Dr. James Mudd, another physician on the OHSU transplant team, who said the entire program was being put on hold. For Howell, that means starting over with transplant programs in Seattle or the San Francisco Bay Area. She wonders whether she will live long enough to get established in the other programs. “I just want OHSU to fix this. This is a wonderful program with great stats and really good doctors,” she said. Information from: The Oregonian/Ore- gonLive, http://www.oregonlive.com Associated Press File A federal judge has given the go-ahead for a thinning project along the Lostine River in northeast Oregon. Wallowa thinning project passes legal muster Forest Service is thinning 2,000 acres in Wallowa- Whitman National Forest Forecast for Pendleton Area THURSDAY TODAY Hazy sunshine Not as warm with hazy sunshine 89° 58° 78° 54° FRIDAY SATURDAY Partly sunny and nice By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI EO Media Group SUNDAY Nice with plenty of sunshine Sunny, breezy and pleasant PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST 78° 49° 82° 53° 80° 53° HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST 92° 59° 82° 55° 81° 51° 85° 53° OREGON FORECAST 83° 53° ALMANAC Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows. PENDLETON through 3 p.m. yest. HIGH LOW TEMP. Seattle Olympia 66/58 82/53 88/53 Longview Kennewick Walla Walla 89/61 Lewiston 73/58 92/59 Astoria 67/57 Pullman Yakima 87/55 72/54 89/59 Portland Hermiston 79/59 The Dalles 92/59 Salem Corvallis 78/54 Yesterday Normals Records La Grande 86/51 PRECIPITATION John Day Eugene Bend 82/54 85/47 88/53 Ontario 87/59 Caldwell Burns 81° 43° 85° 54° 101° (1986) 40° (1964) 24 hours ending 3 p.m. Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date Albany 82/54 0.00" 0.05" 0.18" 5.15" 6.65" 6.10" WINDS (in mph) 87/56 86/42 0.00" 0.03" 0.38" 6.52" 11.37" 8.33" through 3 p.m. yest. HIGH LOW TEMP. Pendleton 83/46 82/56 24 hours ending 3 p.m. Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date HERMISTON Enterprise 89/58 86/62 80° 46° 84° 55° 105° (1972) 37° (1909) PRECIPITATION Moses Lake 71/56 Aberdeen 80/52 82/59 Tacoma Yesterday Normals Records Spokane Wenatchee 71/57 Today Boardman Pendleton Medford 90/55 Thu. WSW 7-14 W 7-14 WSW 7-14 W 8-16 SUN AND MOON Klamath Falls 84/45 Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2018 Sunrise today Sunset tonight Moonrise today Moonset today 6:12 a.m. 7:39 p.m. 9:28 p.m. 9:18 a.m. Last New First Full Sep 2 Sep 9 Sep 16 Sep 24 NATIONAL EXTREMES Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states) High 107° in Blythe, Calif. Low 27° in Utica, Mont. NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day. -10s -0s 0s showers t-storms 10s rain 20s flurries 30s snow 40s ice 50s 211 S.E. Byers Ave., Pendleton 541-276-2211 333 E. Main St., Hermiston 541-567-6211 Office hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed major holidays www.eastoregonian.com To subscribe, call 1-800-522-0255 or go online to www.eastoregonian.com and click on ‘Subscribe’ East Oregonian (USPS 164-980) is published daily except Sunday, Monday and postal holidays, by the EO Media Group, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801. Periodicals postage paid at Pendleton, OR. Postmaster: send address changes to East Oregonian, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801. Copyright © 2018, EO Media Group 60s cold front — Founded Oct. 16, 1875 — Environmentalists have failed to con- vince a federal judge that a 2,000-acre thinning project in Northeast Oregon’s Wallowa-Whitman National Forest vio- lated environmental law. Last year, the Greater Hells Canyon Council and Oregon Wild nonprofits filed a lawsuit challenging the Lostine Public Safety Project, which aims to reduce wild- fire and insect problems along roughly 11 miles of the Lostine River. A U.S. magistrate judge disagreed with the plaintiffs’ contention that the fuel reduc- tion project was improperly excluded from environmental studies under the National Environmental Policy Act and dismissed their other allegations. Those findings have been upheld by U.S. District Judge Michael Simon, who has ruled in favor of the U.S. Forest Ser- vice and Wallowa County — which inter- vened in the case — by dismissing the lawsuit. Simon has agreed with the earlier ruling that the federal government properly used a “categorical exclusion” to exempt the proj- ect from the usual requirement of prepar- ing an environmental assessment or more in-depth environmental impact statement. In this case, the agency didn’t have to analyze whether “extraordinary circum- stances” called for such studies due to pro- visions in the 2014 Farm Bill that allowed “categorical exclusions” outright for cer- tain ecologically oriented forest treat- ments, the ruling said. Likewise, wildlife and botanical reports associated with the project meet the requirements of the forest plan for the Wal- lowa-Whitman National Forest and didn’t violate the National Forest Management Act by failing to ensure “species viability and recovery,” the ruling said. The project also complies with the “wild and scenic river” plan for the Lostine River because the Forest Service properly deter- mined its long-term effects would benefit the river’s “outstandingly remarkable val- ues,” according to the judge. The agency’s collaboration on the proj- ect was sufficient under the Healthy For- est Restoration Act as well, the ruling said. “Instead of participating, plaintiffs often objected to how the Project was being developed, rather than providing meaning- ful, substantive input.” 70s 80s 90s 100s warm front stationary front 110s high low Portland attorney authored complaint against Brown-Nike deal PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A complaint alleging that a ballot initiative agreement negotiated by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, Nike and a public employees union was illegal was authored by an attorney affili- ated with political opponents of both Brown and unions. Attorney Jill Gibson acknowledged Fri- day that she had drafted the complaint filed last month with the Oregon Secretary of State’s office by a Portland man named Richard Leonetti, Oregon Public Broad- casting reported Monday. The complaint challenged the deal to keep an initiative off the ballot that the Democratic governor helped broker in early July. The union-backed initiative would have required Nike and other large companies to disclose tax payments and other busi- ness details. The unions dropped the pro- posal. Around the same time, Nike donated $100,000 to a political action commit- tee campaigning against ballot initiatives opposed by Brown and the unions. The complaint argued that the arrange- ment violated a state law. The state Department of Justice declined to investigate the complaint earlier this month. Leonetti previously refused to say who wrote the complaint he filed. But Gibson emailed the department after it declined the investigation. Gibson declined to say who hired her to draft the complaint. She was a former attor- Subscriber services: For mail delivery, online access, vacation stops or delivery concerns call 1-800-522-0255 ext. 1 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Local home delivery Savings off cover price EZPay $14.50 41 percent 52 weeks $173.67 41 percent 26 weeks $91.86 38 percent 13 weeks $47.77 36 percent *EZ Pay = one-year rate with a monthly credit or debit card/check charge Single copy price: $1 Tuesday through Friday, $1.50 Saturday Circulation Manager: 541-966-0828 ADVERTISING Regional Publisher and Revenue Director: Christopher Rush 541-278-2669 • crush@eomediagroup.com Advertising Services: Grace Bubar 541-276-2214 • gbubar@eastoregonian.com Multimedia Consultants: • Kimberly Macias 541-278-2683 • kmacias@eastoregonian.com • Jeanne Jewett 541-564-4531 • jjewett@eastoregonian.com • Dayle Stinson 541-278-2670 • dstinson@eastoregonian.com • Angela Treadwell 541-966-0827 • atreadwell@eastoregonian.com • Audra Workman 541-564-4538 • aworkman@eastoregonian.com AP Photo/Don Ryan, File In this May 15, 2018, file photo, Oregon Democratic Gov. Kate Brown sports a green Vote T-shirt as she greets students during a “get out the vote” gathering at Portland State University in Portland. ney for Oregon House Republicans, and she has previously worked with Priority Oregon — the group that has run attack ads against Brown. “It appears that the DOJ didn’t focus on the allegation and hasn’t given it due con- sideration,” Gibson said. The state Department of Justice is stand- ing by its decision, spokeswoman Kristina Edmunson said. The Secretary of State’s Office must still decide if it will investigate the deal as a pos- sible election law violation. 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