Addition of doctor to Lincoln County’s winter shelter helps homeless with with short- and long-term ailments

By SHAYLA ESCUDERO/YachatsNews

NEWPORT — When Charles Stuebner is sleeping outside, he usually finds a place along the beach, forming a makeshift bed on the sand and laying a tarp over his body like a sheet.

The ground is cold but mostly bearable until winter arrives. What is less bearable than the cold is the series of blisters that crept up the right side of his body.

Itchy, inflamed and infected, the blisters stretched from the top of his head to the bottom of his leg. It was difficult to resist scratching them, Stuebner said last week as he peeled back a black beanie to reveal patchy skin that still covers his scalp.

The staff at Lincoln County’s winter shelter knew Stuebner had a fever when he came seeking a warm bed in the middle of January. Everyone entering the shelter gets a temperature check as part of the check-in process, said manager Chantelle Estess.

Stuebner’s temperature read 103 degrees from the infection that covered his body.

But Stuebner was able to get medical attention that night because the shelter now has a doctor visiting once a week to treat, refer clients to more specialized care, or send them to the emergency room at Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital.

Stuebner was evaluated at the shelter and sent to the hospital. Estess believes the quick care saved his life.

“Because they caught it he was able to go to the hospital and he can heal in a safe environment and continue primary care,” she said.

Medical team 

The recently remodeled Newport shelter now has a medical room where Dr. Paul Caldron and electronic health record specialist Rachelle Brooks organize medications and bandages along white cabinet shelves. An opaque sheet of sanitary paper covers an exam chair.

Both pieces of furniture are new additions to the space, designated for medical visits with shelter residents. It’s a welcome change from part-library part-craft room the pair have worked in when shelter services operated inside the First Presbyterian Church while the building at Southwest Seventh Street underwent months of renovations needed to reopen.

The 50-bed shelter reopened last month but will close for the season April 30.

Caldron visits on Wednesdays. As people line up to enter the shelter for the night and get signed in, they are asked if they have ailments they would like the doctor to look at. Recently, Caldron has seen a range of conditions from respiratory issues to urinary tract infections.

The care provided at the shelter is closer to urgent care than an emergency room, Caldron said. People may come in with cuts that need bandages or help managing antibiotics. But major, life-threatening conditions will involve getting patients emergency care or referring them to more specialized healthcare in the community.

While Caldron assesses patients, Brooks takes notes for medical records that can be shared across healthcare systems. The electronic recordkeeping builds a medical history and makes sure the patients can access follow-up care.

The program is in its infancy, and since the clinic started in December, 44 unhoused patients have been served, according to Estess.

Cauldron is a rheumatologist, a subspecialist that diagnoses and treats diseases that affect joints and connective tissues. He’s worked in the field for decades, authored research articles and conducted clinical trials.

He’s also volunteered all over the world — Cambodia, Vietnam, Guatemala, Brazil, Ethiopia. He’s been all over the United States too — New York, Illinois, Arizona and mostly lived in large cities before retiring to the Oregon coast.

“The core lesson I took away was that I was proud to belong to the human race, we are durable and tough,” he said.

Volunteering at Lincoln County’s shelter feels like a “clean slate.” When he saw an advertisement looking for an unpaid, volunteer doctor to work at the shelter, he knew he could offer his basic medical knowledge, but that there would be so much more to learn along the way as he practices more basic street medicine.

When Caldron tends to his unhoused patients he is soft spoken, his eye contact is direct and he connects with his patients with his hands.

“I’m a little old school,” he said, “I was trained to see healing as something that starts with touch.”

There can be a lot of shame and hesitance with unhoused patients seeking medical care, Brooks said. She may need to tell patients more than once not to worry about receiving a medical bill, Brooks said, since the program is funded through Samaritan Health Services’ InterCommunity Health Network.

“You may need to be more reassuring, but mostly it’s just being human, you don’t know what any person may be going through,” she said.

A success, a failure 

Charles Stuebner guides his dog, Daisy, through the hallway of the shelter to the room where he would be spending the night. The week before, Caldron had dressed the wounds on his legs, antibiotics have helped with the itching of his cellulitis, and he made another appointment for follow up care.

“I love these people, they saved my life,” he said.

While successful cases like Stuebner’s give Estess hope for the medical care at the shelter, it’s the failures that motivate her.

Jeff Holms was a man who sought the shelter’s services and who was an important role model to other residents, Estess said, someone who would actively encourage people living on the street to come and seek services.

Holms had a major infection in his mouth and needed dental care, she said.

The only thing they could do for him at the shelter was give him antibiotics, but without treatment the infection never went away. Estess tried to connect him with a program that would offer him dental care but it was time he didn’t have to spare.

“He died before he could get help,” she said.

Now that the shelter has a doctor, Estess knows they need a dentist too. She hopes she can bring that service to the shelter by November when the seasonal shelter enters its third season.

“It gave us the whole picture,” she said, “Of how many barriers there are and how severe it really is.”

• Shayla Escudero covers Lincoln County government, education, Newport, housing and social services for the Lincoln Chronicle and can be reached at Shayla@LincolnChronicle.org