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Long wait time leads to patient frustration BY SAEROM YOO The Associated Press SALEM — Sonya Pierce arrived at the Salem Hospital emergency department at 9:30 p.m. recently, with severe stomach pains. She said she was cramping and couldn’t stand or walk. When she was finally seen at 6 a.m. the next day, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. “I felt like I’d been abused as a human being there,” she said. It wasn’t just that Pierce, 51, had to wait more than eight hours in pain to learn of her cancer diagnosis. She also felt she was mistreated by the triage nurses, who told her she was “low priority.” Pierce doesn’t believe her lack of insurance at the time helped her situation either. “They actually saw everybody in the ER room before they saw me that day,” Pierce said. “They act like it’s a normal situation.” Pierce’s story is one example of how an overloaded hospital can affect an individual’s experience in the emergency room. Long waits aren’t only inefficient, it can feel inhumane to patients who are in crisis. Administrators have said Salem Hospital has been experiencing high volumes since the winter of 2012. They recently opened a nine-bed transitional care unit to hold patients who are waiting for inpatient beds to free up, a common way hospitals deal with stress in the emergency room. Chief operating officer Cheryl Nester Wolfe said emergency department staff use a prioritization system so the most acute patients are seen first. Abdominal pain falls in Level 3 of the five-level system, behind patients with symptoms of stroke, heart attack and trauma. While the hospital declined to comment on Pierce’s specific situation, citing patient privacy laws, Wolfe said lots of factors can lead to long waits. For one, between noon and midnight is the busiest time for the emergency room. During the month of August, 32 percent of all emergency patients arrived at the hospital between 6
Photos by Emily Thornton, The World
Csagge McNeely takes care of some of the 200 North Country Cheviot sheep he owns on a 40-acre ranch in Broadbent. McNeely also owns 28 cows, a bull and a llama.
More sheep than ewe know Coos County is home to about 10,000 sheep
Lamb webinar A free “Accelerated Lambing Webinar” will be at 5 p.m. Sept. 23 at the Coos County OSU Extension Office, 631 Alder St., in Myrtle Point. It will have information on increasing reproduction efficiency and decreasing costs of lamb production. For reservations, call 541572-5263.
BY EMILY THORNTON The World
BROADBENT — It all began when his grandfather gave him a lamb, which he bottle-fed from birth. Csagge McNeely, now 20, took “Albert” with him to Powers High School, where he was a junior at the time. Just as a certain song goes, the lamb followed him to school, he said. The woolly creature also answered him when called. “It was practically a dog,” McNeely said. He took care of Albert until he died of an unknown cause in the spring of 2014. He was just 2 years old. “It was a fluke deal,” McNeely said. Albert passed away in his arms even after he hand-fed and watered him for two days, but the experience still prompted McNeely to want more sheep because he “couldn’t have just one.” He said jokes ensued. “I get sheep jokes all the time,” McNeely said. “ I kind of embrace it now and joke with them.” McNeely began his sheep herd by buying out several local
A llama and a cow stand near a flake of hay on acreage leased by McNeely in Broadbent. ranchers in 2012 and now has a flock of about 200 North Country Cheviot sheep. He also has 28 cows and a bull, which are a Limousin-Angus cross. A “guard” llama and a border collie sheep dog help watch the herd. The animals all co-exist on about 400 leased acres of grass and forest land — a fairly average ranch size for the area, McNeely said. Numbers of sheep ranchers have dwindled in the county since the 1960s and 1970s due to predators and tree companies, said JoAnn Mast, another local sheep rancher. Mast keeps about 60 Romney ewes and eight to 12 rams, carrying on the tradition of her family. Despite threats to the industry, there were still about 10,000
head of sheep in the county, said agriculture Bouska, Cassie instructor for the Oregon State University extension office in Myrtle Point. She estimated there were about 95 sheep producers in Coos and Curry counties. Oregon ranked seventh out of 35 states in sheep production in 2008, according to the American Sheep Industry Association website, which reported about 3,200 producers. Texas was first with about 8,700, followed by Arizona with 5,000 and California with 4,100. In numbers of sheep and lambs, Oregon placed ninth out of 34 states as of Jan. 1, 2013, with 210,000, according to the ASI website. Texas was first with
700,000, followed by California with 570,000 and Colorado with 435,000. Sheep are produced in all 50 states, but the highest producing states are west of the Mississippi River where there are larger ranches, according to the ASI site. There were about 80,000 sheep ranches in the U.S. in 2012. Sheep are used for meat, wool, milk and cheese. They also are useful as “self-propelled lawnmowers, clipping the invasive weeds that are rapidly engulfing millions of acres,” the site said. As for McNeely, he said he hopes to expand his herd someday. For now, he is content managing what he has, even though it was demanding at times. He said lambing season was particularly hard because the youngsters were born during winter — the worst time of year to try to survive, he said. “It’s hard to keep newborn sheep alive when it’s raining sideways or hailing and freezing,” SEE SHEEP | A8
SEE PATIENTS | A8
Legislators are ready to ‘work’ as elections loom
Scenery begins to change in Lakeside
BY ANDREW TAYLOR
BY EMILY THORNTON
The Associated Press
The World
By Lou Sennick, The World
Apalm tree,one of 53 already delivered,basks in the sunshine at Wulfy Beach in Lakeside. Fourteen more are on the way and are being donated and planted around the beach on Tenmile Lakes next to the Coos County Boat Ramp.
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Islamic State Margaret Brookes, Coos Bay Lillian Clausen, Coos Bay
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SEE CONGRESS | A8
LAKESIDE — Construction on the Wulfy Beach Project began last week with a crew from Shutter Creek Correctional Institution, Lakeside Fire and Rescue Dive Team and contractors, removing debris and planting greenery. The two-phase project began in 2004, when donations started pouring in, said Mike Mader, coordinator for Wulfy Beach the Tenmile Lakes Basin Partnership. To donate to the Wulfy “It’s part of the Lakeside Beach Project, contact the City of Lakeside at 541-759renaissance,” Mader said. 3011 or 541-759-4325. “We have a reputation of For information on the being the recall center of the Lakeside Brew Fest, visit world. The beach is one of lakesidebrewfest.com. the starts of change.” In 2007, sand was hauled from the back of some dunes near the city’s water treatment center, said Curt Kelling, city manager of Lakeside. The beach is a joint effort between the city, Tenmile Lakes Basin Partnership, Coos County, a main private donor and several smaller donors, he said. Plans include a 20,000 square foot grass area, an event pad for shows, 14 vendor spaces, two volleyball
President Barack Obama will outline his strategy to defeat the militants during a speech on Wednesday. Page A5
SEE LAKESIDE | A8
FORECAST
WASHINGTON — Summer break over and elections ahead, Congress is beginning an abbreviated September session with must-do tasks of preventing a government shutdown and extending a freeze on taxing access to the Internet. Lawmakers will find time, too, for votes conveying political messages primed for fall campaigning. Republicans who run the House may have lousy approval ratings, but they are poised to pad their 34-vote majority and determined to avoid mistakes like last year’s partial government shutdown. That fight was over implementation of President Barack Obama’s health care law. Now, the GOP is pressing for drama-free passage of a temporary spending bill to prevent a federal shutdown at month’s end and fund government agencies past the Nov. 4 election into mid-December. The Senate is sure to go along if that measure is kept free of objectionable add-ons. House Republicans also plan votes aimed at drawing attention to legislation they say would boost jobs and energy production. “We’re set up to paint a very stark contrast between ourselves and the Democrats who run Washington — if we take advantage of it by getting our work done and getting our message out,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told colleagues in a conference call last week.
Mostly cloudy 64/56 Weather | A8