The Friends List

Occupy Medical

Every week Occupy Medical gives away donations of medicine, medical supplies, supplements and hygiene supplies to those in need. Our policy on healthcare is strict: Healthcare is for all. Our ability to heal should not depend on what lines your wallet.
This means that some of our volunteers are busy chasing donations to support the Sunday clinic throughout the rest of the week. The supplies that we need come from a variety of sources. Personal donations are most common. One woman drove up and opened her trunk revealing boxes of brand new wound treatment supplies. Her mother had passed a few weeks earlier. Her family did not need the medical equipment and she knew her mother would approve of sharing these with the clinic.
Other donations come from groups dedicated to charity. Interfaith Occupy and churches such as First United Methodist and Episcopal Church of the Resurrection have helped our people on a regular basis. They bring food, supplies and support that truly comes the heart.
Our allies support us in ways that make our lives much easier. Cahoots popped by unexpectedly with big boxes of wound care. White Bird Clinic has offer numerous supplies through the past year and 1/2. They generously got us started with basic supplies back in the early days of Occupy. Our local hospitals have donated medical equipment that has tremendously expanded the level of care we can offer our patients.
Now businesses are starting to step up as well. Mountain Rose has always been a generous supporter of our clinic but other small, local businesses are sharing with OM this year. One of the owners of Sol Botanicals taught a free workshop via our community education series. McKenzie Mist supplies us with spring water.
As of today, a new business has joined the pursuit of universal healthcare by sharing a grocery bag of vitamins and herbal supplements. To them, it was helpful to lighten the shelves to make room for new product. To us, it meant saving our people from malnutrition. Thank you, Evergreen Nutrition. Welcome to Occupy Medical.

Benjamin Shares His Day at OM Clinic

I was giving a haircut today to a young man from Oklahoma. He told me that he had never seen anything like our clinic in all the cities he has visited. He wished more cities would offer the nonjudgmental care that we at Occupy Medical provide. He commented that he felt that all the volunteers truly cared about him and for all the other homeless folks.

Volunteers work Together to Set Up the Medical Tents Every Sunday Morning

We volunteers at Occupy Medical seldom have the time during clinic to stop and take in what is truly happening. I personally gave 11 haircuts in four hours today…And that doesn’t count detangling Leather Jacket Dude’s long curly locks. So what I’m trying to say is, I seldom have the time to notice the magic that is happening around me….I feel it but do not always witness it.

Today I witnessed a part of what truly makes me proud to be with this company. Jason came into our intake tent and said that the man with him needed immediate help. He sat him down in Donna’s intake chair and Donna immediately began her process. Jason said to the man, “Are you thirsty,” but did not wait for a reply and ran to get him water. Then Nurse Donna appeared and surveyed the situation. She asked him if he had eaten today and then ran, I mean literally ran to the hospitality tent to get him a sandwich. Within no time the man was fast tracked into the bus. I quietly said to the young man in the chair. What you just witnessed is what makes this team so very special. No one is paid or forced to be here, pure love is the glue that holds this place together.

This is only one incident. I do not always see what happens outside the tent or witness the quality, loving care that is given on the bus. But at the end of the day I see The faces, very tired faces, but faces that glow from knowing that we have truly made a difference today. As my friend and fellow volunteer Carla mentioned after I told her what I witnessed, “This is what villages and small towns used to do, they took care of one Another…We are recreating Community.”

Begging for Vitamins

Food not Bombs Provides Free, Healthy, Vegetarian Food Every Sunday.

We have patients from a wide diversity of backgrounds and lifestyles. Some have insurance and homes, some don’t even have shoes. One of the things that ties our patients together is malnutrition. This lack of healthy food both causes and perpetuates the medical conditions we treat.
Occupy Medical is always looking for way to deal with this problem. We have hosted church groups that shared a tray of peanut butter sandwiches and fresh fruit. We have allied with Food not Bombs to share healthy food with the community. We give away vitamins in little baggies to patients that need that extra boost. We have given out granola bars to patients who have so little protein in their blood that even simple wounds can not heal.

We need multivitamins, prenatal vitamins, minerals, fish oil, and single vitamins.

These gifts may not seem like much to the average person. To our people, it is a gift of life. We are always in need. If you have a connection that provide a sizable source of help to us with this problem, please contact us. If you would like to volunteer to help us find donations, please contact us.
Even if you have a couple of bags of baby carrots or a bottle of zinc capsules, please drop them by the clinic during our Sunday hours – 12-4pm. We are always at the Eugene Park Blocks on 8th and Oak doing what we can to save lives.

Meeting Notes 5/1/13

Agenda 5/1/13
Attendees – Donna, Elliott, Brooke, T., Arline, Jerry, Andrea, Ali, Jason, Cindy, Leigh, Sue
growth plan – Elliott and Brooke gave a thorough presentation of our clinics growth. They passed out handouts and posted more notes on the wall to make it easier to see. Our patient load has quadrupled in the last 6 months. According to the growth rate which Elliott and Brooke tracked, our projected growth is between 25-40%. This means that by October we will be seeing between 155-300 patients per clinic. We are currently utilizing between 21-24 volunteers per shift. See the information in our Documents section of the website for more information on this presentation. Perhaps we need to break up our patients into acute and chronic care. 3 hour shifts for doctors to plan for overlap. Scarce resources are doctors and real estate.
mission statement – 501c3 paperwork has mission statement. Sue will send it to the email group. Siletz Tribe grant has money available. They will accept applications for under $15,000. To do lab tests, we need a CLIA waiver. This is a federal certification.
list serve – Volunteers that are vetted are on the list serve.
Sue’s job description – We need to agree to basic communication skills. Presentations in the community. Managing. 1st contacts. Taking to the press. If others can think of things they would like to add to her job description, please send her an email. Sue does not want to over or under step any boundaries. Clarity helps her do her job better.
U of O Students for Global Health – We have 2 students from this organization. We can draft volunteers from this group.
Fundraising – Steel Wool fundraiser is arranged for Cozmic Pizza. The Sugar Beets fundraiser is on the back burner for next year.
Coburg clinic – $1/month for rental of the space
Bus remodel – Dave will do an estimate of the remodel
Bus cleaning – We need to clean the bus. It is yucky.
Flow managing with treatment and docs will be discussed at a later date.
New intake form – Dr. Leigh brought in the new intake form. Some of the information has been eliminated on the form. Some information has been added.
Covering hospitality – Terra and Martin?
Trillium presentation – Sue 8:30am- Wednesday, May 12th
Larissa from Triage is applying for med school. Those that work with her could write a reference. This is one way to say thank you for all her hard work.

Meeting notes – 4/24/13

Agenda 4/24/13
Attendees – Donna, Allie, Jerry, Wendy, T., Becca, Dr. Willy, Cindy, Brooke, Cindy K., Donna G., Elliott
Intake – Donna/Brooke We need to keep better track of our charts. Dr. Willy was trapped last Sunday and needs to have a runner to contain patient flow. Triage will work up a list of protocols to establish better patient flow. Take out pink chart to be served first. We will be cutting off patients at 3pm. Intake does not need to track treatment any more. Brooke will take care of this later.
May Day – Rally at Kesey Square. Sue has been invited to speak about OM. Consensus achieved.
MAP – Cindy will not be working at Peacehealth any more. Her new job allows her to directly access MAP for our patients at Occupy Medical. She will bring her laptop and enroll patients on Sunday. The behavior meds will not be on her list of meds to fill.
Kickstarter – Kids from UofO are close to finishing the kickstarter video
Calling a meeting to reenforce our allies - 
fundraiser – T is getting the run around with connections on starting the band fundraiser. Becca will call her contact to get the number of the go to person to make this project go faster.
Trauma Center workshop – Tuesday 4/30/13 at Trauma Healing 1-3:30 – Workshop on dealing with patients with trauma 222 Coburg RD.
Cindy – announcement Trillium may be interested in funding us. Chiropractor/PT volunteer potential. He is invited to pop by and see how the clinic runs to see how he would fit in to the program.
Coop program LCC – Arlene discussed using our program as a destination for LCC students. Elliott and Sue will meet Peter to get more details.
Med students – Jerry met with the head of the OSU Pharmacy school to reinforce our relationship with their program. Consensus on moving forward with pursuing this project.
4 month camping ban – July 1
Cahoots – T suggested that we ask a rep from Cahoots to share the aspects of their program
Churches – T would like to see more churches to share food through out the month.
Retreat – Come one, come all. Bring food, bring liquids. Email Becca to let her know what time you will be arriving. 
Vaccine Clinic – May 5th as planned. Allie sent a notice to Eugene Weekly already.

Tax Day Donation

Sue Accepts the Much Needed Donation from Taxes for Peace not War

April 15th is the day that War Tax Resisters throughout America have chosen to publicly display their frustration with government supported aggression. The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee explains the motivation for movement best.

“In the U.S. war tax resisters choose to refuse some or all of their federal income tax and/or other taxes, like the federal excise tax on local telephone service. Income taxes and excise taxes are destined for the government’s general fund and about half of that money helps to pay for the military budget including all types of weapons of war and weapons of mass destruction.

People take many roads to war tax resistance:

some are protesting a particular war;
some find it against their religious convictions to knowingly support war;
some are horrified by massive U.S. military spending while human needs go unmet;
some are or would be conscientious objectors if called to military service and, therefore, feel they cannot in good conscience pay for something they would refuse to do themselves.

Most war tax resisters are motivated by a combination of reasons like these, and actively work for peace in many other ways too.”

While Occupy Medical is not a war tax resistance group, most of our volunteers do agree that government would wise to reconsider use of the hard earned tax money they do receive. We were happy to receive support from members of Taxes for Peace not War.
The event was cosponsored by Taxes for Peace Not War, Lane County Women’s Action for New Directions and Community Alliance of Lane County who staged the event in from the post office as an expression of their outrage at the government’s policy to fund the international war effort. Members of Occupy Medical showed up to accept the donation and cheer other activist groups on. We are proud of the work our allies do every day to make this world a better place.

http://www.kval.com/news/local/90992889.html?tab=video&c=y

Vaccine Clinic – May 5th

Take Care of Yourself

Take an active part in community health and get vaccinated!
Ali Heyn

Occupy Medical will be partnering with Lane County’s Department of Health and Human Services once again to provide Tdap (tetanus-diphtheria-pertussis) vaccines to uninsured adults (aged 19 and up) free of charge. The vaccines will be administered at the May 5th clinic, located at the Park Blocks, between the hours of 12:30pm and 3:30pm.

Throughout the country, we are seeing a startling resurgence of pertussis (whooping cough). This is due to its high communicability (more contagious than the flu) combined with very low rates of adults receiving booster shots (8%). Last spring, our neighbors in Washington saw the highest rates of pertussis since 1942, an epidemic with 4,783 reported cases throughout the State. Although Oregon didn’t suffer to that magnitude, we did see our rates nearly triple from 320 cases in 2011 to 909 cases last year.

The Tdap vaccine should be administered once to adults who did not receive a booster shot as an adolescent. This vaccine became available in 2005 and is different from a Td (tetanus) shot. Those who are in close contact with infants are especially urged to get vaccinated, as the vast majority of deaths from the disease occur in unvaccinated infants. As such, Tdap is also recommended once per pregnancy for women in their 27th – 36th week of gestation in order to maximize the number of antibodies passed to the baby.

Getting vaccinated for pertussis not only protects oneself from contracting the disease, it also prevents the spread of the disease to the larger community through a phenomenon known as “herd immunity”. Our hopes are that with the help of the Department of Health and Human Services, we will be able to get as many people vaccinated as possible. If we all work together, we can prevent a major pertussis outbreak in Lane County.