Legal assistance during the pandemic

Nebraskans who have questions or who are experiencing legal problems due to the coronavirus/COVID-19 public health emergency can get legal advice and help through the free COVID-19 Disaster Relief Hotline.

Hosted by Legal Aid of Nebraska, working closely with the Nebraska State Bar Association’s Volunteer Lawyers Project (VLP), this hotline aims to make key legal assistance easy and accessible.

If you’re a Nebraskan facing legal issues related to the virus, or the owner of a small, locally-owned business (less than 50 employees, and not a franchise) that’s closed, in risk of permanent closure due to the virus, and where the payment of fees would significantly deplete your resources, the hotline may be reached at 1-844-2685627.

Callers will be connected to the hotline’s voicemail. Callers should leave their name, phone number, brief details of the problem and the assistance needed, and in what county they’re located.

Callers will receive a call back from an experienced Legal Aid staff member. Individuals and businesses that don’t qualify for Legal Aid’s free services will be directly referred to the VLP. The VLP will work to place cases with Nebraska volunteer lawyers who will provide free legal assistance.

The types of legal issues associated with COVID-19, and focused on by the hotline include: • Tenants with rent issues, including those facing eviction. • Debt problems, including debtors with garnishments or who are ordered to appear at a debtor’s exam. • Mortgage foreclosures, including advising on options for delinquent payments. • Unemployment insurance denials. • Employee rights, including sick leave and wage payments. • Government benefits available to low-income persons such as ADC, SNAP, AABD, and SSI. • Medicaid and medical insurance claims. • Drafting wills, health care power of attorney, and transfer on death deeds. • Domestic abuse and safety issues. • Elder abuse and exploitation. • Access to education. • Helping small, locally-owned businesses with business and employment related matters, including human relations issues, unemployment benefits, and contracts.

More information on these legal issues is available at legalaidofnebraska.org.

Call 402-444-6536 ENOA is recruiting volunteers for its Ombudsman Advocate Program

The Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging is looking for men and women age 21 and older to join its Long-term Care Ombudsman Program which is co-sponsored by the Nebraska State Ombudsman Program.

ENOA’s Long-term Care Ombudsmen volunteer in local long-term care facilities and assisted living communities to protect the residents’ rights, well-being, and quality of life.

Long-term Care Ombudsmen must complete 20 hours of initial classroom training and 12 hours of additional training every two years.

During the training, the volunteers learn about the residents’ rights, aging issues, Medicare, Medicaid, communication skills, how to investigate the residents’ complaints, the importance of confidentiality, and about the federal and state rules, regulations, and laws regarding Nebraska’s long-term care facilities and assisted living communities.

Before being assigned to a long-term care facility or an assisted living community, new volunteers will make four visits to a site with an experienced Ombudsman Advocate to learn more about what the program entails. After a threemonth probationary period, the new volunteers are certified as Ombudsman Advocates.

Certified Ombudsman Advocates will be assigned to a long-term care facility or an assisted living community where they’ll visit for two hours a week to meet with administrators, residents, and the residents’ family members to address concerns.

For more information about ENOA’s Long-term Care Ombudsman Program, please call Beth Nodes at 402-4446536.

By Nick Schinker Contributing Writer

Andrea Skolkin believes every person deserves access to the best health care possible.

Last year, as CEO of OneWorld Community Health Centers, Inc., she directed a legion of physicians, nurses, and healthcare staff who delivered medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, and support services to more than 50,000 patients in the Omaha area.

She credits her family upbringing and personal values for her willingness to meet a challenge that continually grows in size and scope.

“I am a second-generation immigrant,” Skolkin explains. “Growing up, my father would always bring home strangers who had no place to go so they could share our holiday meals. I guess that just rubbed off on me.”

Every year, more and more people are grateful that it did.

Fresno, Calif. was the birthplace of Andrea Richtel (Skolkin), one of three children born to Melvin Richtel, a pharmacist, and his wife, Bettie. Andrea lived in Fresno until she was about 3, when her family moved to Salt Lake City to be closer to her mother’s family, and so her father could open a pharmacy there.

She remembers life as a Jewish family in a predominantly Mormon community. Caring and close-knit, her family lived in a neighborhood with many adult friends and children who played together outside.

“We went on family vacations in a car with no seat belts and no air conditioning,” Skolkin says. “We took trips to Denver, because that is where my father was from.”

She says Salt Lake City and the surrounding region was beautiful, and during her middle school and high school years, she became an avid skier.

Though her first choice for college was to return to California, instead she attended the University of Colorado in Boulder. “I was a wannabe hippie,” she says. “I was too late for the ’60s, but I wanted to be in that kind of environment. I found that in Boulder.”

In addition to her parents, she had several influences that likely steered her toward a career of community service. “One was my Aunt Sadie,” she recalls. “Her husband had died, and she had to raise two children on her own. I always admired her independence and perseverance.”

Later, it was a college class and a book she read by Robert Butler, an American physician, gerontologist, and psychiatrist whose work, Why Survive? Being Old In America, won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1976. Butler recognized discrimination against older adults as early as 1968, coining the kinder term “ageism” and becoming an advocate for the needs and rights of older persons through research and social action.

“It won me over,” Skolkin says. “I just knew that was it for me.”

She earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1977 and went on to earn a Master’s in Public Administration from Loyola Marymount University in 1983.

Skolkin worked in health care and aging in California, then moved in 1990 with her husband, Michael, to live in the Twin Cities in Minnesota for 9-1/2 years, where she served as executive director of the Metropolitan Area Agency on Aging. The couple have two daughters, Marlee and Maddison.

Andrea’s husband worked with mortgage loans, and when his company decided to open an office in Omaha, he asked if she would be willing to move. They came to Omaha and she worked from 1999 until 2004 as

Skolkin earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado and a Master’s degree from Loyola Marymount University.

executive director of Hope Medical Outreach Coalition, which provided specialty care for uninsured persons.

“I got to know about OneWorld during that time, and I actually worked to create some programs for them,” she says.

In August 2004, Skolkin accepted the position of chief executive officer at OneWorld, a community service organization with a strong history that has become increasingly robust and relevant under her leadership.

“When I think that I have some small role in making sure 50,000 people get the help they need, that’s an incredible feeling.”

In the late 1960s, leaders from Omaha’s Hispanic and Native American communities united with members of Gethsemane Lutheran Church, medical students from Creighton University and the Creighton School of Dentistry, and Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries to address the needs of people who were struggling to afford health care after most major meatpacking plants in South Omaha closed. This led to the establishment in 1970 of the IndianChicano Health Center, a volunteer-staffed free clinic providing patients facing financial, cultural, and linguistic barriers better access to quality health care services.

Physicians and students from Creighton University’s dental, nursing, medical, and pharmaceutical schools; the Clarkson College of Nursing; and the University of Nebraska Medical Center staffed the clinic as volunteers. The clinic incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1973, and one year later received its first funding from United Way.

In 1979, Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries, now Lutheran Family Services, purchased a building at 2702 S. 20th St. It was renovated and the organization provided administrative support as the health clinic continued to grow. The clinic hired a three-person staff and added community outreach, translation, and transportation services.

Eventually, the clinic’s board of directors decided it was time to become a freestanding organization, hiring its --Please turn to page 9.

--Continued from page 8. first full-time executive director, Sister Mary Kay Meagher, APRN.

Mary Lee Fitzsimmons, R.N., Ph.D., became the second executive director and would lead the center through nine years, while the staff grew to 15 employees. In 2003, the Indian-Chicano Health Center was renamed OneWorld Community Health Centers, Inc., to better reflect its changing patient base.

In 2004, with a budget of $4 million and a staff of 60 employees, Skolkin was hired as OneWorld’s CEO.

In the 16 years since, OneWorld has grown to 520 employees, 13 clinic locations, and a budget of $50 million.

Each year, Skolkin says, the needs and the challenges have grown, too.

OneWorld was set to mark its was going to be a year of celebration.

Then came Covid-19.

“We had no idea the pandemic would take over everyone’s lives like it has,” Skolkin says.

Operations changed, she explains, and OneWorld, like the nation and the world itself, had to adapt. “Still, we never closed. We’ve not missed one day.

“We had to secure personal protective equipment for everyone and provide testing,” she says. “We adopted telehealth, and we delivered medicines to people 50 and older, and people with high-risk factors. We added windows on our pharmacy so people would not have to come into the building, and we added staff to test people and the equipment to do it safely outside.”

Patients who test positive are advised on isolation, while a team of OneWorld case managers conducts follow-up checks during the twoweek quarantine period.

Transportation service was suspended, and literacy center services were conducted online.

When the pandemic first hit, Skolkin says, “there was not enough information being shared in Spanish, and many in the community did not understand what was taking place. It took a few weeks for people to understand.

“Luckily, we have built a lot of trust within the Hispanic community, and because immigration status has never been a condition for care, they have continued to come see us.”

Many of the challenges Skolkin faces as CEO are the same as they were before the pandemic.

“You’re always worried about the money,” she says. “Our greatest needs are always financial and personnel. Trying to hire the right people is challenging. It’s even more pronounced now, because if someone is exposed or tests positive, you have to be able to fill in those spots while they isolate and quarantine.”

There are joys with the challenges, Skolkin says. “Meeting people and making sure everyone we bring aboard shares in the vision; that is the part of my job I love the most.”

So many joys, she says, that retirement is at least five to seven years away, “although my family tells me, ‘You’ll be there forever, Mom.’”

“No matter what I do, I have to do something meaningful,” she says. “I have social justice in my heart, and I have been blessed with a wonderful board of directors that has given me the opportunity to serve. When I think that I have some small role in making sure 50,000 people get the help they need, that’s an incredible feeling.”

There are many days, she says, that she drives up to the OneWorld headquarters at the Livestock Exchange Building and sits in awe of what has happened in the past 16 years.

“I remember when we wanted to move into this building and I met with a donor,” she recalls. “They told me that my greatest job would be to translate the needs I see into a language people would buy into and invest in.

“I hope that if I saw them today, they would say I’ve done that,”

50th anniversary in 2020. It

Skolkin says.

During Skolkin’s 16-year tenure as CEO, OneWorld Community Health Centers, Inc. has grown to 520 staff members, 13 clinical locations, and an annual operating budget of $50 million.