Letters to the Editor - 7/29/2020

A few years ago there was an excellent article in The Nugget about our noxious toxic knapweed invading Sisters. I see currently knapweed has totally invaded the corner property near the Lodge & Post Office. It is now blooming and can release up to 25,000 seeds per plant, covering Sisters. The plant makes soil toxic to native plants plus it can be toxic to horses. It is difficult to eliminate.

All the blooming Sisters knapweed needs to be removed now before seeds are released. Please write another informative article. Thank you.

Sharon Sharpnack

To the Editor:

Thank you for the article in last week’s paper, “Cold weather shelter a victim of pandemic,” (The Nugget, July 22, p. 1).

The last several years the cold weather shelter has received broad community support in the form of volunteers, meals for shelter guests and donations. I am hoping the community will continue to support the shelter in coming up with and facilitating options to help house our houseless community members, many of whom work in local Sisters businesses.

Last season, we just had a handful of local shelter guests so I don’t feel the situation before us is insurmountable. I feel our creativity and compassion will prevail. I’m just not sure what that looks like.

Lois Kaping

Wellhouse Church Cold Weather Shelter Liaison

To the Editor:

Hello again to my wonderful community.

I would like to take a moment to add to the information regarding COVID-19 that I feel has not been reported on enough. It is the actual hands-on care (acuity) that is needed to care for the hospitalized COVID-positive patients.

As you may already know, I work as an RN in the ICU in Bend. I work with a wonderful, hard-working, compassionate team of health-care providers; Doctors, RNs, RTs, CNAs, etc. In this letter I can only speak personally for the processes in the ICU, but I know all the units are working just as hard to care for our community.

Typically in the ICU it takes one RN for two ICU patients — 2:1. Frequently there are 1:1 ratios when an ICU patient is requiring a higher acuity of care. When a COVID patient comes to the unit they are a higher acuity and require 1:1 care. We also need a “rover” RN as the assigned RN is typically gowned in PPE in isolation and often needing items outside of the room in order to provide care for our COVID patient. The ICU doctor is not only caring for the COVID patients but all the other ICU patients in the unit as well. We are still admitting traumas, strokes, cardiac arrests, etc.

An important part of the COVID patient’s care is placing them in the prone position (on their stomachs) while intubated and on a ventilator. This process takes at least five health care providers — an RT, two RNs, and two CNAs — to provide this important care. This typically takes place once a shift. These patients are very sick and need a lot of care. This “proning team” is assembled from health-care providers that already have patients of their own to care for.

So the next time you see the number of patients in the ICU, please take in consideration the specialized care and health-care staff that are working really hard to save their lives. As of right now there are four in the ICU per the St. Charles website.

The “COVID admission number” is just a count, it is not telling you the acuity count. Hopefully you will understand this a little more after this letter.

This is why we as health-care providers are asking you to take this seriously, and educating about suppressing the curve. Being overwhelmed with COVID patients in the hospital can greatly influence the care we all strive to give. We need your help.

Thank you to all the health-care workers that are working so hard to care for all the patients in our community.

From the primary-care offices to the ICU, know that you are appreciated and respected for the work that you do. Thank you to the community members that are caring for the sick and looking after the high-risk populations by wearing a mask and respecting social distancing as able.

Be kind, wear a mask. It’s the right thing to do for your fellow humans.

Emily Kroytz

To the Editor:

We have now seen many weeks of protests after the death of George Floyd. I realize that his tragic death brought the matter of racial justice to a boil and was fueled by the frustrations of people being cooped up at home for so long.

But we need some perspective. We are told he was a recidivist ex-felon who was contacted by police for buying cigarettes with a bad $20 bill. Not the person you would suggest as a role model for your children.

And, yet, he is the central figure in all the rioting, vandalism, property damage, and personal injuries resulting from these “peaceful demonstrations” BLM organizes.

Interestingly, a few weeks later an innocent one-year-old boy was gunned down and no one cares.

The media does not talk about it and BLM is not outraged. Why? Because it is not news. It happens all the time.

BLM is a political organization and there is no political gain to be garnered there.

Furthermore, anarchists/troublemakers/Antifa have highjacked the good name of BLM and incited more violence and conflict with law enforcement officers.

Incidentally, if the Portland City Council and Mayor and Oregon’s governor (who commands the National Guard) had done their jobs responsibly the feds would not be there now.

Bottom line: if you live in a safe neighborhood, thank the police. If you live in a dangerous neighborhood, welcome the police!

Donald Harner

To the Editor:

As a response to Craig Eisenbeis’ column about his “adventure” to Cuba and to provide him with a bit of education about the horrific history of the revolution that plunged the Cuban people into their continuing police state existence: Please note that the Cuban people are the victims of this repressive regime, not victims of the USA.

In 1959 within weeks of taking power after an armed revolt against the corrupt dictator Batista, Fidel and Raul Castro, along with the revolution’s chief enforcer and murderer Che Guevara, began the summary executions of Cuban business owners, land owners, professors, teachers, bureaucrats, police and military leaders.

Che Guevara was made Castro’s commander of the La Cabana prison, and the firing squads began.

Che was asked by the foreign press about the justifications and legality of the executions by firing squad his answer was “These concepts of trials and legal procedures are unnecessary in a revolution; they are an archaic bourgeois detail.

A revolution must become a cold killing machine, motivated by pure hate.” Raul Castro said in an AP interview in 1959 that “Executions were about revenge and redress.”

The “revolution” led by the Castros and Che was responsible for over 6,000 assassinations in the Oriente Province alone, (remember this next time you see some “woke hip” ignoramus wearing a Che-in-his-beret T-shirt)

Cuba fast became a police state with Soviet assistance and they both began exporting communist revolution and stirring up trouble with Cuba’s neighbors, our neighbors, all in America’s backyard during the Cold War.

Over 100,000 refugees fled, most landing in Miami, these people had their homes, businesses, farms, investments, cars and property seized by the state, no private property allowed, (unless you are the communist elite).

Craig Eisenbeis, you need to ask one of these thousands of Cuban exile families if they think the “USA is the bully” as you put it. Or ask these victims of the Cuban totalitarians if the U.S. policy towards the Cuban government is “just because they have a different way of life,” not a way of life the vast majority of them desire or have chosen.

The Cuban people are trapped in a police state that has provided them nothing but oppression and impoverishment.

As to your ridiculous statement about the Cuban healthcare system, even if their system did work, which it does not, the trade-off for the tyranny and poverty the population endures in not even close to worth it.

Further propaganda you were fed on your Cuban “adventure,” or intentionally pass along in your article, is that there is some benevolence and charitable quid pro quo provided by Cuba in sending their doctors abroad, it is well documented** they are mere slaves of the state and the Cuban government does this as a form of obtaining hard currency for their backward repressive communist economy.

Craig maybe your next “adventure” should either be to the library to research the evils of the history of the communist Cuban government or to Miami to speak with some Cuban exiles.

Eric Knirk

**NYT 9/29/17, WSJ 12/25/19, BBC 5/14/19, Reuters 12/12/18, Civil Rights Defender 2/24/20