What began as a temporary first aid tent along the Occupy Eugene movement in October 2011, morphed into the Occupy Medical clinic in February 2012. It's there that every Sunday from noon to 4p.m., volunteers gather at their mobile clinic to make a difference by offering free healthcare in downtown Eugene, Oregon.

Sue Sieralupe, a certified herbalist, was one of the founders of Occupy Medical. She has been the clinic manager since it started.

“What we are trying to do is show Oregonians what it looks like to have single-payer,” she says, a system in which the government pays for all health care costs. “It doesn't matter how much money you have, how much insurance you have, what your background is, if you need help - you get help. That's it .”

With around 30 volunteers, including ten nurses, three doctors, three people on the herbal supplement team, four people in the mental health committee and two people on the pharmacy team, Occupy Medical provides 100 percent free treatment. If the volunteers can't offer the service needed, they also go “behind the scenes” in other organizations to help people through it.

As the clinic manager, Sieralupe solicits funds, donations and supplies. She looks at the volunteers’ background to put them in the right job. She is also the spokesperson for Occupy Medical. She attends panels with other healthcare advocates, and gives classes at OSU on how to open your own clinic.

Continue reading »

PANDA (People Against the NDAA) Oregon protests against indefinite military detention, the application of the laws of war on U.S. soil, and secret arrests.

Recently they held a "Orange Jumpsuit March." Hundreds of people saw the group, one in Military garb, two in prison jumpsuits, and several others handing out information and getting people signed up to help.

From the PANDA website:

Our Mission is to nonviolently nullify, strike down, repeal, stop, void and fight the indefinite detention provisions, Sections 1021 and 1022, of the National Defense Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year of 2012, to fight for American civil liberties, to combat laws restricting liberty in the interest of National Security, to support current government officials that are doing so and to engage a younger generation in the politics of the United States so this cannot happen again.

An Oregon teen was taken off life support a week after he attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself from playground equipment at an elementary school.

Jadin Bell, 15, was driven to take his own life because he was bullied for being homosexual, according to his family.

Officials at Bell's school, La Grande High School, said they were investigating reports that Jadin was being bullied at the time that he hung himself.

Hundreds of students had turned out to honor Jadin Bell, a sophomore at La Grande High School, at a vigil last week while he was still fighting for his life in the hospital.

Family friend Bud Hill believes that Jadin was pushed to suicide after being bullied, both online and in person, for being gay.

'He was different, and they tend to pick on the different ones,' Hill told KOMO News.

Jadin was afraid to turn in the bullies...afraid that it would only make the situation worse. He had asked his parents to homeschool him.

'If someone was down and out he would walk into a room and say a couple quick words and everybody would just forget about their problems and smile,' Hill added. 'He just had a gift.'

"Jadin is one of the best people I have ever met," LHS junior Frankie Benitez told the La Grande Observer. "He makes everyone around him feel good all the time."

A close family friend, Jody Bullock runs an adult assisted living home for seniors said that Jadin came over frequently and always made a point of saying hello to her residents and talking with them. Bullock said it is unusual for young people to do this, noting that often young people are afraid of seniors.

“He is an amazing young man who is smart and very social,” Bullock said. “He has a persona and a presence that you want to be a part of,” she said.

“We always knew that Jadin is a special person," said Jadin's mother, Lola Lathrop, "Now everyone knows.”

After the jump, some helpful resources for young people contemplating suicide, their parents, and educators.

Continue reading »

Watch The Suicide Plan on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

An unforgettable portrait takes viewers inside one of the most polarizing social issues of our time. The debate over physician-assisted suicide has never been a simple one, and in the 48 states where the practice remains illegal, the issue has only grown more complicated in recent years.

Assisted suicide is legal in Oregon and Washington, but elsewhere around the nation, the right-to-die movement has struggled to make many inroads. Since 1992, efforts to legalize the practice have failed in California, Michigan, Maine, and most recently, in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, 41 states have passed laws making it a crime to assist in a suicide, legislation that has led many who want help dying deeper into the shadows.

As FRONTLINE reported in The Suicide Plan, this underground world of assisted suicide has added new layers of moral and legal complexity to one of the most polarizing issues in America. For example, what does it mean to actually assist in a suicide? Who, if anyone, should be allowed to pursue aid in dying, and what safeguards should be in place in states where the practice is legal?

There will be a live chat with filmmakers Miri Navasky and Karen O'Connor at Frontline's website to discuss these questions and take yours in a live chat on Thursday at 2:00 pm ET. You can leave your question now, and return to join the live discussion.

You may have given up or forgotten about it, but some states are already using the health reform law to test their own versions of government-run healthcare.

In 2014, under the federal health overhaul law, millions of Americans will be able to buy coverage through state-based insurance exchanges. In California, government-run public plans, like the Alameda Alliance for Health, will go head-to-head with private insurance companies to compete for all those new customers, and those who run the county plans believe they can offer a robust network of doctors and hospitals to bargain shoppers looking for low-cost coverage.

“I think when some people get to make a choice,” says [Alameda Alliance for Health CEO Ingrid] Lamirault, “having local offices they can walk into and get help with things and get their questions answered, and when they call customer service they get their calls answered in under two minutes. Those kinds of things are important to them.”

Montana is looking at opening up its Medicaid program to public employees and, eventually, to any citizens in the state, although it’s unclear whether the state will receive waiver authority to do so. Oregon is considering a similar approach just as Vermont moves forward on its own plan to go single-payer.

Maybe it's time to check in with your representatives to find out what they're doing to make healthcare affordable fore everyone, and if they aren't doing anything, shame them with these fine examples of progress.

[Washington Post, Image via Flickr]

This video comes to us from a reader, Vince in Portland, Oregon who writes "Police chief Mike Reese seems [to] accuse the Occupy Movement of preventing a rape victim from receiving help, due to police being understaffed. I cannot tell you offended I am, and shocked that Chief Reese would exploit the case of a rape victim in order to suppress a peaceful movement. And people ought to know what kind of bias they're facing from most of the media, as this video exemplifies."

A reporter with KGW News speaks with Portland Police Chief Mike Reese on Thursday, November 17th:

KGW: "I want to ask you about how much this [Occupy Portland] is distracting the police force from other crimes that are going on in our area?"

Reese: "Well, that's a great question and I appreciate you asking it because we are reducing our patrol response. Many days like today we're taking emergency calls only for service. For example, we had a rape victim stand by for three hours until we could get an officer to take a report, and that makes all of us very sad."

KGW: "For three hours? And that's directly related because there wasn't enough staff because they've been doing other things with Occupy Portland?"

Reese: "Correct."

Well, Vince in Portland, I wish I could say that I'm shocked, but sadly there is a lot of negative spin going on in the media as they try to paint the Occupy movement as a horrible thing that is to blame for all of society's ills. Very convenient that KGW just happened to ask Chief Reese that "great" question.

It's also not surprising that Portland was one of the cities that a Justice Department official says coordinated recent evictions of Occupy movement across the country "with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies."

It is horrible if true that a rape victim had to wait such a long time for a police officer after going through such a trauma. No question about that. However, the belief that the general public needs to be "protected" from people exercising their Constitutional rights, and the calling attention to injustices in our country is nothing more than spin from those who would rather the public remain silent about such things.

Serving an individual community's victims of crime - and especially victims of violent crimes - should certainly come before surveillance of hippies who might serve some hot soup or offer a blanket to a homeless person.