4 A
❘
SATURDAY EDITION
❘ JANUARY 16, 2016
Siuslaw News
P.O. Box 10
Florence, OR 97439
RYAN CRONK , EDITOR
❘ 541-902-3520 ❘
EDITOR @ THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM
Opinion
YESTERDAY’S NEWS
MOMENTS IN TIME
The History Channel
On Jan. 19, 1809, author Edgar Allan Poe
is born in Boston. By the time he was 3 years
old, Poe’s parents had died, leaving him in the
care of his godfather, John Allan. Allan eventu-
ally disowned Poe for gambling debts.
On Jan. 22, 1879, U.S soldiers badly
bloody Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife and his peo-
ple as they make a desperate march to flee the
Indian Territory where they had been relocated
and return to their Wyoming homeland.
On Jan. 18, 1912, after a two-month
ordeal, the expedition of British explorer
Robert Falcon Scott arrives at the South Pole
only to find that Norwegian explorer Roald
Amundsen had preceded them by just over a
month.
On Jan. 21, 1959, Carl Dean Switzer, the
actor who as a child played “Alfalfa,” the freck-
le-faced boy with a cowlick, in the “Our Gang”
comedy film series, dies at age 31 in a fight in
California.
LETTERS
Indian Creek land scoping
The U.S. Forest Service is about to land-
scape Indian Creek drainage again. The aquat-
ic and terrestrial ecosystem proposal is to
enhance the area. The group has been chang-
ing the area for the past 20 years, wasting lots
of dollars. Project spending has been ongoing.
Why?
Readers, your help is needed to insure that
another government waste does not occur. As
an educated reader, how do you feel about
your public lands? Jobs have gone away.
Rural communities are starving. Schools are
lacking appropriate funding. Mapleton swim-
ming pool closed. Trees that could provide liv-
ing wage jobs die of diseases, insects and mis-
management.
With proper government timber manage-
ment, rural communities could become eco-
nomically sound again. Timber is a great
investment, which can be recycled over and
over again. Do you like investing money with
no return?
The Forest Service is planning to close
many of the remaining roads. Fire protection
will be reduced and hunting access limited.
Mushroom picking and auto sightseeing
pleasures will be highly restricted. This repeat
performance is a poor use of public dollars.
You can help by going to the hearing on
Thursday, Jan. 21, at 6 p.m., at the Mapleton
Grange. Come, express displeasure of the poor
use of your tax dollars. Shouldn’t education,
roads, police and fire protection come first?
Richard Beers
Oregon Homestead Family Pioneer,
Indian Creek Watershed, Eugene
How the walk-in
clinic works
We had a couple Letters to the Editor in
2015 complaining about the hours it can take
to be seen by a doctor at our PeaceHealth
Walk-In Clinic and, even more frustrating, to
not even be seen. I know that can happen, but
there are several legitimate reasons for it.
First, we have several thousand residents in
Florence and nearby communities who do not
have an assigned primary care physician
(PCP). For those unassigned residents, the
Walk-In Clinic is their only PeaceHealth med-
ical resource for non-emergency care.
PeaceHealth is constantly recruiting and
searching for more physicians to serve our
unassigned residents, but the current nation-
wide shortage of physicians hinders recruit-
ment in smaller communities.
Second, the Walk-In Clinic is also available
for same-day care for patients who have an
assigned PCP. Having the Walk-In Clinic
available for these patients hopefully keeps
small, treatable conditions from progressing to
hard-to-treat or emergency conditions when
no timely appointment is available.
Third, remember this is a first-come, first-
served Walk-In Clinic. The doors open at 6:45
a.m., Monday through Friday, and at 7:45 a.m.
on Saturday.
I have used the walk-in clinic a number of
times while my PCP was on medical leave,
and usually got up early so I could be one of
the first ones in when the doors opened. Not
everyone can do that, but it is the surest way
of being seen without a long wait. It all
depends on the number of patients seeking
care. Even though the clinic is open until 5:30
p.m., the number of providers seeing patients
can easily be overwhelmed.
Fourth, when you do see a provider, he/she
will give you all the time needed to resolve
your issue. That is different than when a
patient sees his/her assigned PCP with an
appointment of about 20 minutes. It also
explains why the Walk-In Flow Specialist can-
not tell us how long our wait will be. It all
depends on the issues (known and unknown)
walking in.
Finally, remember this is a “Primary Care”
Walk-In Clinic as opposed to an Urgent Care
facility. That has benefits to us as patients,
allowing us to see doctors for primary care
issues and keeping our charges at that level.
Here’s how I try to make the Walk-In Clinic
work for me: I arrive as early as possible. If I
arrive midday or early afternoon, I will proba-
bly have a couple hours of waiting ahead of
me. If that is the case, I ask the Flow Specialist
to call me when my number comes up and
return home (or go run other errands). If time
runs out and I don’t get called, my option is to
try again the next day, but at least I haven’t
spent hours sitting in the waiting room.
If I didn’t have my own vehicle, I would
seek out a family member, friend or neighbor
who could drop me off and come back for me
if the wait didn’t look too long or take me
home and return me to the clinic later.
Nena Harvey, director of PeaceHealth
Siuslaw Region Medical Group operations
and the driving force behind the Walk-In
Clinic, has worked hard with staff to provide
same-day medical care that is truly designed
to meet the patients’ needs.
Having had its beginning in early 2010, it
has been tweaked time after time to make it
more patient friendly and efficient. Nena and
her staff are to be congratulated on providing
first-class, same-day medical care that certain-
ly meets the needs of many Florence residents,
our visitors and those living in our nearby
communities.
Bob Horney
Florence
Terrorist-free nation
My mail forwarded the Dec. 19, 2015, edi-
tion of the Siuslaw News that just recently
caught up with me as I travel in my RV. In the
Letter to the Editor section of that edition, a
person took exception to my Dec. 9 letter
regarding Syrian refugees.
When I said we had to face facts regarding
possible infiltration of radical Muslims within
the refugee program, being pushed on us by
the Obama regime, he said, “This is a fact that
is not a fact.” It is a fact that the Greek gov-
ernment just confiscated a shipping container
full of automatic weapons, munitions and
bomb vests labeled as “furniture” for further
shipment into Europe to Muslim refugees.
Does this gentleman not consider that
weapons, munitions, bomb vests, etc., could
be shipped here, if not already here, for radical
Muslims entering our country in the refugee
program?
He calls my analogy of the M&M candies
(where I suggested there could possibly be 10
poisoned ones in a jar of thousands) cute, trite,
naive and simplistic. He did not, however,
offer to take that jar of M&Ms into his home,
I note.
I would also call his attention to the fact,
and it too is a fact, more than one President of
the United States has halted immigration into
our country temporarily when it was warrant-
ed as many of us suggest it is now.
It is not bigotry, racism or scapegoating as
he suggests of those of us that want to keep
our nation as free as possible from terrorists,
either foreign or domestic.
Tony Cavarno
Florence
On Jan. 23, 1968, the U.S. intelligence-
gathering ship Pueblo is seized by the North
Korean navy and its crew charged with spying.
Negotiations to free the 83-man crew dragged
on for nearly a year, and required a signed con-
fession by the ship’s captain admitting to spy-
ing.
On Jan. 24, 1972, after 28 years of hiding
in the jungles of Guam, farmers discover
Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese sergeant who was
unaware that World War II had ended. Yokoi
had gone into hiding rather than surrender to
the Americans.
On Jan. 20, 1981, minutes after Ronald
Reagan’s inauguration as the 40th president of
the United States, the 52 U.S. captives held at
the U.S. embassy in Teheran, Iran, are released,
ending the 444-day Iran Hostage Crisis.
President Jimmy Carter had been unable to
diplomatically resolve the crisis.
(c) 2016 King Features Synd., Inc.
L ETTERS TO THE
E DITOR P OLICY
The Siuslaw News welcomes letters to
the editor concerning issues affecting the
Florence area and Lane County.
Emailed letters are preferred. Handwritten
or typed letters must be signed. All letters
should be limited to about 300 words and
must include the writer’s full name, address
and phone number for verification.
Letters are subject to editing for length,
grammar and clarity. Publication of any letter
is not guaranteed and depends on space
available and the volume of letters received.
Libelous and anonymous letters as well
as poetry will not be published.
All submissions become the property of
Siuslaw News and will not be returned.
Write to:
Editor@TheSiuslawNews.com
USPS# 497-660 Copyright 2016 © Siuslaw News
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WHERE TO WRITE
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Postmaster, send address changes to: Siuslaw News, P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR 97439; phone 541-997-3441; fax
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Pres. Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
TTY/TDD Comments: 202-456-6213
www.whitehouse.gov
Gov. Kate Brown
160 State Capitol
900 Court St.
Salem, OR 97301-4047
Governor’s Citizens’ Rep.
Message Line 503-378-4582
www.oregon.gov/gov
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5244
541-431-0229
www.wyden.senate.gov
FAX: 503-986-1080
Email:
Sen.ArnieRoblan@state.or.us
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley
313 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3753/FAX: 202-228-3997
541-465-6750
State Rep. Caddy McKeown
(Dist. 9)
900 Court St. NE
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1409
Email:
rep.caddymckeown@state.or.us
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (4th Dist.)
2134 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-6416/ 800-944-9603
541-269-2609/ 541-465-6732
www.defazio.house.gov
State Sen. Arnie Roblan (Dist. 5)
900 Court St. NE - S-417
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1705
West Lane County Commissioner
Jay Bozievich
125 E. Eighth St.
Eugene, OR 97401
541-682-4203
FAX: 541-682-4616
Email:
Jay.Bozievich@co.lane.or.us