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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (April 25, 2020)
6A | SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 2020 | SIUSLAW NEWS SHS from page 1A “I’m really excited about that because it’s going to be a challenge,” she said. “It’s a new position and will real- ly allow me to support staff and administrators with all of the challenges that we’re facing right now as we tran- sition into more technolo- gy-based learning.” Tatum said it also fits with her background, as she was an engineer for Intel before she began working in edu- cation. “It’s really taking the two things that I’ve been the most passionate about and putting them together. I’m HARBOR from page 1A ‘Hey, can we move forward?’ If people had been sched- uled, eventually they should be contacted in the next cou- ple of weeks, whether it be a routine mammogram that needed to be put on hold, or other procedures.” When the state first locked down, all “elective procedures” were barred by the governor’s order. “We took that very liter- ally,” Foster said. “The only procedures that we’ve been doing are truly emergency procedures. Partly, that was wanting to conserve PPE while not knowing how big the surge was going to be.” But only focusing on emergency procedures caused a dip in patients, not just those who wanted elec- tive surgery, but for emer- gencies as well. “We have seen our emer- gency department volume go down during this quaran- tine period,” said Robin Al- len, director of clinical ser- vices. “We’ve seen incidents where patients have not come in when they should have. They waited until later, and then had more serious issues. I think people have BOND from page 1A “Paradoxically, there has been a silver lining in all of this for our Florence stu- dents. They have suddenly had nearly the entire catalog of Lane classes available to them right here in Florence, and the playing field has been leveled since all of our students have, for the time being, become remote stu- dents,” he said. For Pierson, this is all part of a larger discussion about online learning and the need to expand professional and technical training of all types “In many respects, this has been a wake-up call for all of us in higher education. At LCC, we’ve been working hard to reduce the friction in our enrollment process- es and to consider ways we might continue to utilize some remote technologies going forward. And that re- ally is great news for all of our Siuslaw region students, Auto, Home, Life, Business Flood, Antique Auto, RV’s Medicare Advantage Plans Medicare Supplements Health Insurance Phone (541) 997-9497 1234 Rhododendron Dr / Florence excited to be able to be a support person,” she said. The move will also allow Tatum to be closer to her family. “My parents, my kids, my extended family — all of the people I grew up with are there, so I’m kind of moving home,” she said. The district has been searching for a permanent replacement for Tatum during the past weeks, with the goal of assuring conti- nuity in a rapidly changing educational environment. “While we do have some quality candidates to replace Ms. Tatum, there’s been a lot of shift since the pandem- ic happened,” said Siuslaw School District Superinten- dent Andrew Grzeskowi- ak. “At this point in time, I’m going to appoint Garth Gerot as interim principal for Siuslaw High School for next year, and we will look to hire an assistant principal behind him for next school year. This provides a little more stability.” Gerot is in his third year as assistant principal. Before coming to Siuslaw, he was an administrator for Willa- mette Leadership Academy for four years and a class- room teacher for 10 years for grades 6 through 12. “I was a struggling stu- dent as a kid,” Gerot said in a statement released to the media on Thursday. “School certainly wasn’t an environ- ment in which I felt I ex- celled and certainly wasn’t a place I imagined spending my career. But after gradu- ating from college and some soul searching, I was deter- mined to find a job where I could have a great positive impact on as many people as possible — and education seemed to be it.” After teaching for a num- ber of years, Gerot said he applied for an administra- tive position because he found satisfaction in sup- porting an entire system. “I loved helping teachers become better and I loved to see that hard work re- flected in the students we serviced at our school,” he said. “I love collaborating with staff and, after only two short years, managed to see alignment around a common vision for our school and a team that put students first. “This is when I caught the bug and realized adminis- tration was a place of great satisfaction for me.” As for his work at Siuslaw High School, Gerot said working with older students preparing for the next step in life was exhilarating. “I was no longer finding myself saying, ‘When you get to high school,’ and in- stead discuss getting stu- dents to graduation and helping them gain the skills necessary along the way to pursue a life of passion be- yond high school,” Gerot said. “I’m really happy that Garth is taking over,” Tatum said. “Thinking about leav- ing this year the way it’s ending had me feeling really guilty about leaving. But I’m really happy that he’s going to take over because the staff and the students know him and trust he will do a good job.” been told to stay home, so things they may have come in for before, they’re holding back on and not coming in until the symptoms are so bad that it becomes a big is- sue.” Ignoring symptoms can cause issues, including hav- ing patients being admitted to the hospital when they normally didn’t need to be. “We want them to come in if they normally would have come in,” Allen said. “We don’t want them stay- ing at home thinking, ‘Oh, I can wait this out.’ If someone has something serious going on, whether it be chest pain or symptoms of a stroke, we don’t want them waiting at home to see it resolve. They need to get in here.” Another example of an is- sue would be someone who needs a hip replacement. “If you have severe pain, and you’re taking a bunch of opiates to get by, this is not like, ‘Oh, I just want to get my hip done,’” Foster said. “There’s actual pain in- volved.” Testing was also put on hold. “Not COVID testing, but like routine mammograms. Bone density stuff, a lot of that was put on hold be- cause we didn’t want people to come to the hospital not knowing if there was going to be a big surge,” Foster said. In the past week, the hospital is beginning to see more patients come in for a variety of issues. “It’s still below normal levels, but I think people are maybe understanding that COVID is out there and it’s real, but they don’t have to hide under their bed. I think that’s why people are starting to come back,” Foster said. “They’re starting to realize that the chance of catching COVID in the hospital is no greater than at the grocery store. Probably even less so.” Foster pointed to the hos- pital’s commitment to regu- larly checking employees for fevers, requiring the wearing of masks, and testing of pa- tients for COVID-19. Regarding testing capaci- ty, Peace Harbor has begun gradually expanding what is available. “I would say on the slower side than the faster side, but it is expanding gradually,” Foster said. Currently, Peace Harbor is offering two tests: a rapid test which can give results back in an hour or less, and a second test that is sent out to the state lab, which takes one-to-two days for results. People who are suspected of having the virus are admin- istered the more accurate state test, while rapid testing is saved for people who are not suspected. As for who qualifies, all patients admitted to the hospital will receive a test, while in the past week test- ing in the walk-in clinic has expanded, which has also allowed the hospital to ex- pand who they are giving the tests to. “Initially when testing first began, the only way in Oregon to get a test was to be sick enough to be admit- ted to the hospital with sus- pected COVID symptoms,” Foster explained. While there are still re- strictions on who can get tested, they are nowhere near as stringent. “If you have some symp- toms — a cough, shortness of breath, fever, those kind of things — you can get a test as long as you’re in a high-risk category,” Foster said. That includes people over the age of 65 and those with preexisting conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary dis- ease). “There’s a pretty long list that would qualify you to not get the rapid test, because those are somewhat limited, but the tests that have a cou- ple day turnaround,” Foster said. “You would just call up your provider, and some- times they could arrange this to be done where you drive in and get tested.” Ultimately, the lack of pa- tients has hurt the financial stability of hospitals across the country and particularly in rural areas. “Absolutely there was concern about healthcare across the country, even more pronounced in rural healthcare,” Hawkins said. However, Peace Harbor was able to avoid many of the financial traps because it was part of the PeaceHealth system. “I can comfortably say that PeaceHealth really stepped out there and ap- plied for the funding that was available for healthcare organizations to bridge us through this period of time,” Hawkins said. “They’ve sta- bilized the cash flow for all the hospitals, including the rural hospitals. The knowl- edge they brought to how to apply for all the differ- ent sources of funds that were available. They really stepped up there and did a great job stabilizing the fi- nancial situation.” Financial help was also provided by members of the community through pro- grams like the PeaceHealth Peace harbor Medical Cen- ter Foundation, www.peace- h e a lt h . org / fou n d at i on / peace-harbor/donate-now, which allows individuals to make donations directly to the hospital. “Now, with bringing elec- tive procedures back, we have certain things in place that will allow ourselves to be available to the commu- nity and help us with our cash flow streams,” Hawkins said. Editor’s Note: In the next edition of the Siuslaw News, Hawkins talks about the procedures PeaceHealth is undertaking to remain prepared for the pandemic, as well as new technologies introduced, such as tele- health services. as well as for our faculty and staff in Florence, since we may be able to ‘originate’ ed- ucational programming that becomes available through- out our district and not just always look to be the recip- ients of such programming,” he said. Bond dollars would provide updated learning spaces and technology for several programs, including advanced technology and cybersecurity. Additional- ly, LCC would qualify for a matching $8 million state grant to construct a new building to allow for expan- sion of health professions programs and LCC’s Dental Clinic. The opportunity to offer more of these types of class- es has increased as the use of digital learning platforms becomes more wide-spread and familiar to students and faculty, according to Pier- son. “One of the things I am most excited about is the scope of the bond that di- rectly enhances the capac- ity for CTE (career-techni- cal education) training in some of the trades that are most expensive to teach,” he said. “This could be a mo- bile CTE lab that will bring the expensive equipment — that can’t be readily rep- licated at our satellite cen- ters — right here to Flor- ence. Welding, fabrication, these and some of the other highest-paying jobs in the trades will begin to open up to our local students with- out having to trek to Eu- gene for these career train- ing opportunities.” Workforce education, which is slated to receive $77 million upon voters’ approval, makes up the vast majority of the bond’s expense. Money will go to expanding manufacturing and technology programs to include food processing and advanced wood prod- ucts manufacturing and create a mobile welding and manufacturing lab. It would also be used to ex- pand the Maxwell Student Veterans Center to allow for increased access and re- ferrals for student veterans to medical, dental, mental health and affordable hous- ing resources. Pierson wanted the com- munity to know that while his concerns are currently focused on his serious re- sponsibilities as dean, he is also optimistic about the future and how higher ed- ucation is essential to the growth of Florence. “No one knew the incred- ible difficulties we would all be experiencing in this sea- son when Lane determined to ask our voters for this funding, but in at least one respect, this current crisis represents the things that community colleges can do best,” Pierson said. “In the wake of the Great Re- cession, LCC’s enrollment district-wide increased well over 40 percent between 2008-2012, as many, many people who had been dis- placed or stuck in low-pay- ing, entry-level work de- termined to ‘upskill’ and access our programming to invest in themselves and their future.” Pierson’s assessment of the challenges presented by the COVID crisis also included a simple but important guar- antee to local residents. “None of us know what the future holds, but I do know LCC is here in this community for the long- term, and we will be pre- pared to do our part to train our residents and help reignite the economy of the Siuslaw region,” he said. For more information about Lane Community College, visit www.lanecc. edu. ESTATE JEWELRY AND ANTIQUE FURNITURE!!! County Transfer & Recycling We buy, sell and consign quality estate/heirloom jewelry & furniture. Gold, silver, platinum jewelry with precious & semi precious stones. Call 541-997-8104, Florence Antiques & Coast Jewelers Separating recyclables from your trash reduces the amount of waste that ends up in landfi lls, saves energy, and reduces emissions! Items that can go into your recycle cart are: • Cardboard (fl atten) and Paper (magazines, junk mail, newspapers, scrap paper, cereal boxes, egg cartons) • Plastic milk jugs and transparent drinking bottles (rinse – no lids) • Metal food and drink cans (rinse – no lids) Florence recycling picked up on same day as your trash. 541-997-8233 5078 Coastwood Ln, Florence OR wasteconnections.com Since 1983 Alva Bracey Broker Your goals are my top priority. Let’s get together! 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