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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (June 1, 2011)
i Spílyay T y ro o o , Springs, O re g o n Page 5 June 1, 2011 TeleCo Corner Telemedicine Comes to Warm Springs by M arsha Spellman Marketing <& Regulatory Director, WSTC Two years ago, my dad died o f co n gestive h eart failure. From the time he had his first bout of heart failure until the tim e he p assed away, every morning my dad would wake up and stand on a scale, put on a finger monitor and a blood pres sure cuff. This doesn’t seem un usual, but this was not any old scale. It was a new tele-health device wired into the telephone jack of his home. A few minutes after he stood on that scale and put on the other medical items, all the in form ation that these devices gathered would be transmitted to a rem ote m ed ical cen ter where local nurses would read the results. If anything concerned the nurses, they would call him to ask about his health. Checking weight, blood pressure and oxy genation levels are critical for keeping a heart patient healthy. If he gained a few pounds this might indicate he was retain ing fluid, which might mean his heart was not functioning cor- recdy or his kidneys were start ing to fail. If they thought he needed m edical care, a nurse w ould come to the house to check up on him. With this system, he didn’t have to wait to receive care until he was so ill that he was in critical condition and needed to be hospitalized. Why am I telling you this? Isn’t this an article about tele communications? My dad was fortunate to live in a community that had broad band telecommunications and be an early adopter of what is called “T ele-h ealth ” care or sometimes “Tele-medicine.” The reason that I am tell ing you, is that this new world of medical care will be able to be available in Warm Springs, once the new phone company builds out its new broadband network. Because these, and other, new medical devices need a lot o f bandwidth to transmit the data through the phone wires, it is not possible without a broad band network and broadband connections to a home or medi cal facility. Tele-health care is the new step in modern medicine. It enables medical consultations to be conducted between patients and health professionals across different locations. Telemedicine will enable the patients in Warm Springs to “see” doctors in Portland or Bend without having to drive Warm Springs m il be part of the medical technical revolution. hours for an appointment. Medical staff can share test results without having to wait days for specialists to look at an x-ray or MRI in a hospital hours away. You can even have your doctor in Warm Springs look into your ear with what may look like a standard ear probe, but have a doctor in Pordand read the results. All of this will be possible with the use of new broadband tech nology will be offered through out the reservation by the new Warm Springs Telecommunica tions Company. In addition, Warm Springs applied, and has been accepted, to be part of a new network to serve h o sp itals and clin ics throughout Oregon. Five years ago, the Oregon H ealth N etw ork (OHN) re ceived $20 million from the Fed eral Communications Commis sion to build a new broadband network to connect rural health clinics with some of the state’s large hospitals, including Oregon H ealth Scien ces U n iv ersity (OHSU) in Pordand and Bend Medical Center. OHN is committed to mak ing quality care available to ev ery patient regardless of their location. Being a participant in this groundbreaking develop ment will provide multiple ben efits to clinics statewide, includ ing here at Warm Springs. Like the rest of the telecom changes com ing to Portland, none of this will happen over night. It might be years before we see these programs in use with all the new tech n o lo gy and m edical devices necessary to make it happen. Warm Springs will be part of the medical technical revolution. Be patient. But remember, you will be a better served patient once these new telecommunica tion services are in place. It is part of the reason that the tribes have been working for many years to make these changes possible, by improving the tele communications on the reserva tion. The Warm Springs Telecommu nications Company (WSTC) is a tribally chartered enterprise whose mission is to bring advanced broad band services to the Warm Springs tribes, including voice, data and video. The start-up company ex pects to begin delivering services in the fa ll o f 2011. Extra revenue puts safety net on ‘life support’ SALEM (AP) - Finally, ev erything seems to be coming to gether for Tamara Yallup. O nce a drug ad d ict and drifter, the 33-year-old single mother of three has now held an apartment since Thanksgiv ing and will soon begin taking classes to become a medical as sistant. This summer, her 13-year- old son w ill m ove from his father’s place in Warm Springs and her whole family will be re united for the first time in more than a decade. Y allup cred its som e o f Oregon’s social safety net pro grams with helping her get her life back on track. Som e o f those program s, until this month slated for dev astating cuts, are looking to have a slightly more promising future in the next tw o-year budget thanks to an uptick in antici pated revenue. “Since I’ve been through this program I’ve had a stable liv ing,” Yallup said. “My m ind’s straight and I can think clearly. M y kids are doing good, I’m doing good.” State services helped her get a GED diploma and pay her expenses while she learns job skills and prepares for her ca reer. Rosier projections for tax collections, released in the quar terly revenue forecast May 12, mean lawmakers probably won't have to cut nearly as deeply as they once feared from services for seniors, people with disabili ties and low-income families like Yallup’s. But advocates warn that some critical programs are still on the chopping block. “We’re going to be able to put most programs back on life sup port, but they’re going to be very fragile even w ith these add- backs,” said Rep. Tina Kotek, a Portland D em ocrat who co chairs the budget subcommittee that oversees spending on hu man services. “We’re going to be at the bare minimum.” In February, faced with a dire budget outlook and the loss of millions in federal stimulus dol lars, Gov. John Kitzhaber pro posed low erin g the lifetim e maximum for welfare checks from five years to ju st 18 months— a move that would have given Oregon the nation’s shortest lifetime maximum and potentially kicked thousands out o f the program before they could become self-sufficient. Program advocates said the cuts would have destroyed the very last threat holding up strug gling families, sending parents to the streets and children into fos ter care Early in the legislative session budget writers identified the pro posed 18-month cap as a key problem to address, and the idea spawned intense opposition from interest groups, religious leaders and was formally con dem ned by the M ultnom ah County Board of Commission ers. Tem porary A ssistance for Needy Families, or TANF, is part of the remodeled welfare system approved in 1996 by the R ep u b lican C o ngress and D em o cratic P resid en t B ill C lin ton . T he o verh aul w as known as “welfare to work” and designed to give temporary cash assistance, career training and job placement services to fami lies with children until parents could earn a sufficient income to support the family. “This is a program designed for poor children,” said Jessica Chanay, deputy director of Part ners for a Hunger-Free Oregon. “Whatever decisions get made with TANF are going to have a disproportionate impact on poor children.” T he ad d itio n al reven ue means the lifetime max won’t be shortened, but other job-train- ing services that Yallup and thousands of others rely on on will almost certainly be curtailed, lawmakers said. Programs still facing signifi cant cuts or outright elimination include: — The Parents as Scholars program, which helps 1 percent of parents on TANF get a col lege education that can lead to higher-wage jobs and pull the family out of poverty; — Post-TANF, which pro vides small monthly checks to help families transition from TANF into the workforce; — The JOBS for Oregon’s Future program, an employment and training program that serves people both inside and outside of the TANF program; “W hen yo u ’re com peting against a lot of mainstream ap plicants in an employer’s mar ket, it can be challenging,” said Tracee Wells, an employment specialist and business services liaison with Portland Commu nity College, which contracts with the state to provide job training and placement services for TANF clients. The need for temporary cash assistance has ballooned since the G reat R ecession forced employers to jettison jobs and sent unemployment rates soar ing, as high as 11.6 percent in June 2009. In October, more than 29,000 families were in the program, 60 percent more than a year earlier, according to a leg islative memo. 'V & Ù Calif., illustrate the problems green energy faces as it grows and tries to merge into a power system that is not ready to fully exploit it. The conflict was generated by the highest spring runoff since 1997 in the Columbia Ba sin, where Bonneville markets power from 31 federally owned hydroelectric dams, providing about a third of the power for the Northwest. Blumenauer complained that ) • 5 T Bonneville hasn't done enough yet with $2 billion in federal stim ulus funding to expand transmission Unes, and has not adopted solutions identified in a 2007 report for the Northwest Power and Conservation Coun cil on ways to store wind energy at times it is not needed. He estimated the shut-offs are costing wind power genera tors millions of dollars at a time when they need help attracting investment to keep growing. »in rii >2 3 i(i( y.R ;ifl Yvonne Iverson/Spilyay Native Thunder riders present a donation to Boys & Girls Club of Warm Springs director June Smith. We would like to send a huge “Thank You” to every one that participated and supported the First Annual N ative T hunder Show & Shine that was hosted by Kah-Neeta High Desert Re sort & Casino and Northwest Cycles on Saturday, May 14. The event faced ch al lenges including a 70 percent forecast for rain and com petition from various other events in the Central Oregon area. We did have a good turn out in spite of that, and par ticipants included represen tatives from Central Oregon Abate in Bend, local partici pants and individuals all the way from Yakima, Wash. The route for the Poker Run took riders on a tour of the no rth end o f W arm Springs to Simnasho where the first stop was at Three Warriors Market. It then ran through W apinitia over to Maupin for the second stop. It routed up the river and canyon to Highway 97; back down through Madras to the Desert Inn in Metolius for the third stop where Jan set up an awesome picnic for the riders. And it wrapped up by taking a tour of Lake Simtustus and Pelton Dam on the way back to Kah- Nee-Ta. 01 til CK The riders who partici i.ß pated in the Poker Run ex pressed a genuine enjoyment )d of the ride and scenery and 4 tí are looking forward to next year’s event. This first year event net ; ted $393 for the Boys & Girls ! 8 Club of Warm Springs. Win ners of the Poker Run and fi 50/50 raffle w alked away ) ) with nice prizes, and several >jv participants received door prizes that were donated by il local businesses and individu als. irti We send special thank- ?, fi you to the following individu als and businesses that do iì nated time, hard work, items ßq for door prizes and money: T H o w ard and A ngie R am bow ; Jo h n and u o Stephanie Parker; Preston P arker; K ip M o rris; B ill di S tan ton ; M argie K alam a; ir a Dennis and RaNeva Dowty; 3 g Julie from Central Oregon ori A bate; NAPA Auto Parts (Madras); Oregon Embroi dery; the D esert Inn in Metolius; a North End Do od nor who wishes to remain anonymous; and let’s not for get Kah-Nee-Ta and the ra mi dio stations that provided us with advertising over the past month! Sam D ouglas, N orth west Cycles, 93 S.E. Trace o Street, Madras, OR 97741. irti TI tf- Wedding Announcem ent It is with jo y that we Catherine Bernadette Hamray and Winter Night Selam in vite you to share in the celebra tion o f love as we exchange our marriage vows on Saturday, the eleventh o f June, 2011, at 10 o ’clock in the morning at the Toppenish Creek Tonghouse in White Swan Tonghouse grounds, White Swan, Washington. Re rt ception immediately following. o:> _drt dì dii cu AFFORDABLE TIRES a id N ew - n - U sed « nß 18 3 0 4 M a d is o n S t ., S u it e 102 M a d r a s , OR. 97741 tí« ßd oí I saac H ector 541 - 693-3742 CI 541 - 693-3386 CASCADE R‘DGE Wind industry demands grid overload solution (AP) - The wind energy in dustry demanded last week that the Bonneville Power Adminis tration fix problems that have forced the shut-off of North west wind generators while hy droelectric dams fill the grid with power produced from a heavy spring runoff. The complaints voiced by the American Wind Energy Associa tion and U.S. Rep. E arl Blumenauer, D-Ore., at a wind energy conference in Anaheim, N ative Thunder 366 APARTMENTS SW " M " St., Madras •Energy Efficient Construction »Washer/Dryer in 3 Bdrms $499 •Dishwasher & Garbage Disposal «Fenced Playground •Refrigerator & Stove «Laundry Room •Ceiling Fan •2 Bdrms $399 «Friendly, Professional Resident Managers A
