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S moke S ignals
august 15, 2014
Control Your Diabetes. For life.
Please join the Community Health Program for our
Diabetic Support Group at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 19. It is
located at the Community Center in Grand Ronde
and open to all community members. Adults only.
Call for more information: 503-879-2078
A healthy meal is provided following the meeting!
Grand Ronde Tribal
Housing Authority
Photo by Michelle Alaimo
Dr. Lance Loberg is Grand Ronde Health & Wellness Center’s new medical
director.
Loberg named medical
director of Tribal clinic
By Ron Karten
Smoke Signals staff writer
If the Tribe wanted a doctor
with compassion, dedication and
a willingness to devote an entire
career to underserved populations
in Oregon, the Grand Ronde Health
and Wellness Clinic found one in
Lance Loberg.
At Salem Hospital and communi-
ty branches of the facility, now part
of an umbrella organization called
Salem Health, Loberg, 61, was for
five years an obstetrics specialist.
The program he worked in – Family
Birth Center – served those without
health insurance.
He saw patients with diabetes
and provided family services for
those who were pregnant. Two-
thirds were Spanish speaking and
the majority included higher risk
patients. One quarter of patients
were diabetic.
Before that for 20 years, he worked
with migrant and family health cen-
ters. Four of those years were with
the free clinic of the Salud Medical
Center in Woodburn, and for 17
years he was at Northwest Human
Services in Salem, also a facility serv-
ing patients without insurance.
Two years ago, Salem Health’s
Birth Center operations changed.
The clinic closed and referred
underserved patients to Oregon
Health & Science University in
Portland. Loberg stayed in Salem,
working in urgent care with about
a third of his time devoted to oc-
cupational medicine.
Recently, he started looking for
other options, he said. His reputa-
tion led to an inquiry through the
professional website LinkedIn, and
that led him to Grand Ronde.
“When I first visited Grand
Ronde, I liked everything here,”
he said. “All parts. It was more of
what I was doing through most of
my career. I thought it would let
me get back into things I’d done for
most of my life.”
Loberg’s charge in Grand Ronde,
since arriving at the end of July, is
about a third administrative and
two-thirds clinical, taking care of
patients.
“Dr. Loberg comes to Grand
Ronde with a tremendous amount
of experience in family medicine,”
said Jeffrey Lorenz, executive di-
rector of Health Services for the
Tribe. “He will be a welcome addi-
tion to our team.”
As the department looks at sched-
uling and coverage and coordina-
tion of care across all health center
departments, Loberg is “very will-
ing to evaluate our systems and
processes and work to improve
them to help us meet the needs of
our members and provide excellent
patient care.”
Loberg said that the department
is “doing a good job; doing good
work already,” but he is holding
regular provider meetings to focus
on best practices. He also is mak-
ing sure that clinic providers keep
track of all problems of all patients
with a “personal care” approach.
With his background in women’s
health care, Loberg intends to
expand those services in Grand
Ronde. The expanded services will
give women birth control options
and possibly pre-natal care.
To start, he says, “I’ll provide
these services. New providers may
have this experience,” Loberg said,
“and as they perform this work,
there won’t be as much demand
that I do it.”
With two sons through college,
and another along with two daugh-
ters still in high school, he said,
with a little bit of humor, “I keep
working to support them.”
He is a gardener and a cyclist,
and for music, he said, “It’s mostly
things my daughters listen to.”
Elders’ phone numbers wanted
The Tribal Elders Committee is compiling a volunteer phone list
of Elders. If you would like to submit your phone number and ad-
dress to be available to other Elders, send it to elders.committee@
grandronde.org or leave a message at 503-879-2231.
Home repair grants for Tribal homes
The Tribe, through the Grand Ronde Tribal Housing Authority,
offers Home Repair Grants to Tribally owned private homes for
needed repairs, upgrades and maintenance.
If you own a home in Oregon and it needs a little help with
things like a worn-out roof or a tired heating system, get in
touch with your Tribal Housing Authority and see if you and
your home qualifies. 503-879-2401.
Council adopted
new amendments
ENROLLMENT continued
from front page
handled fairly and without bias.
The council adopted these amend-
ments under the emergency tem-
porary enactment provisions of
the Government Organization and
Procedures Ordinance in early
July. This ensures that the same
process is applied to all involun-
tary loss of membership matters
regardless of whether they are
currently pending before the Tribal
Council or Enrollment Committee.
All pending disenrollment cases
are now being remanded to the
Enrollment Committee for a final
decision as required by the Enroll-
ment Ordinance.
Unfortunately, a number of false
and misleading articles and state-
ments have been published and
appeared on social media regard-
ing this entire process. We feel it
is our duty to our membership and
to members of the public to clarify
that misinformation being dissemi-
nated by a few individuals.
Some of those statements falsely
contend that individuals provision-
ally disenrolled by the Enrollment
Committee have now lost their
health care and housing benefits.
That is simply false. Recogniz-
ing the importance of health care
and housing, Tribal Council voted
to allow individuals faced with
involuntary loss of membership
continued access to health care
and housing throughout the appeal
process. Prior to the amendments,
individuals’ benefits would have
ceased immediately following a de-
cision by Tribal Council to remove
them from the rolls. Our empathy
for these individuals led us to this
extension of benefits.
Other statements implying that
members are being subjected to
new enrollment criteria are also
incorrect. And the numbers of in-
dividuals they claim have been dis-
enrolled are also overstated. Out of
6,100 files reviewed, 14 members
were disenrolled by Tribal Council
(dual enrollment) in August 2013
and 86 members were remanded
back to the Enrollment Committee
by Tribal Council (lineal descent)
in July 2014.
Additionally, statements imply-
ing individuals have been denied
hearings before the committee
or council are completely false.
Countless hours of testimony from
individuals facing disenrollment
have been given before the commit-
tee and council over the course of
many days and weeks.
The Tribal Council has diligently
worked to remove these decisions
from the influences of political
process in a more appropriate way.
We understand these are sensitive
and difficult issues and want to
ensure each case is handled fairly
and without bias.
We want to remind our member-
ship that there is a judicial process
to appeal these decisions to Tribal
Court and the Court of Appeals.
As elected officials, we took an
oath of office to uphold our Tribal
Constitution and the laws of the
Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde. In that same pledge, we
swore that we would perform all
duties required of us by the Con-
stitution and the laws of the Tribe.
For those reasons, we must move
forward. This has not been an easy
decision for Tribal Council. All of
these issues have weighed heavily
on each and every one of us. We
cannot let any past errors override
the clear language of our Constitu-
tion.