Think Out Loud

Jackson County nonprofit health provider rolls out new mobile health clinic

In February, a bright blue, 38-foot-long, custom-built mobile health clinic rolled into Jackson County. Five days a week, it provides an array of free or low-cost services in Medford and Ashland that range from filling medications and running lab tests to dental exams and wound treatment. The mobile health clinic [https://laclinicahealth.org/la-clinica-launches-new-mobile-health-center/] is operated by La Clinica [https://laclinicahealth.org/about/impact/], a nonprofit that for nearly 40 years has been helping meet the health care needs of primarily low-income residents in Jackson County.    This is La Clinica’s third mobile health clinic and the first time it has been able to provide these services in nearly three years after an arson fire destroyed its previous mobile clinic just a few days after it began seeing patients. Roughly 160 patients have already visited the new mobile clinic during its stops at food pantries, campgrounds, apartment complexes and other sites, according to Zulma Larios, La Clinica’s field-based care manager. The patients include Latinx residents afraid of visiting hospitals and clinics because of increased federal immigration enforcement, unhoused people and former adults in custody reentering society. Larios joins us to share more details about the impact the mobile health clinic is having.

OHSU program helps children on Medicaid prepare for kindergarten

Access to preschool in Oregon remains limited, with more than half of the state’s school districts reporting that [https://childinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-Oregon-School-District-Preschool-Survey-Report.pdf] demand has outpaced available slots. The deficit could leave many children without the early literacy and math skills they’re expected to bring into kindergarten.    The Kinder Coaching Program [https://news.ohsu.edu/2026/04/01/ohsu-kinder-coaching-program-ensures-young-patients-enter-school-prepared-to-learn] at Oregon Health & Science University aims to incorporate school readiness into medical care. During a routine visit, medical providers can refer children on Medicaid to a team of community health workers who help them develop the cognition, communication and social-emotional skills they need for kindergarten.     Jaime Peterson is a pediatrician at OHSU and director of the Kinder Coaching Program. Isha Syll is a certified community health worker and one of the program’s “kinder coaches.” They both join us to talk about the importance of providing early learning opportunities for low-income families.

Nurses say patients at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem still at risk

The Oregon State Hospital in Salem, the state’s only public psychiatric hospital, is facing multiple lawsuits alleging retaliation against those who have formally raised serious issues about the way it is treating — or failing to treat — its patients. OSH has been out of compliance with federal standards in recent years, and it has been found in contempt of court [https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/20/oregon-state-hospital-contempt-appeal/] for not admitting mentally ill criminal defendants quickly enough. Last year, Lindsey Sande, the deputy chief nursing officer at OHS was so concerned she made a formal complaint [https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2026/03/oregon-whistleblowers-say-culture-of-silence-creates-risk-of-another-death-at-state-psychiatric-hospital.html]. But she says nothing was done, and the patient died 9 days later. [https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2025/03/patient-dies-at-oregon-state-hospital.html] She says she was demoted shortly thereafter, along with two other whistleblowers. We’ll talk with Lillian Mongeau Hughes who covers homelessness and mental health for The Oregonian/Oregonlive.com [http://oregonlive.com]. And we hear directly from Sande about how she sees OSH patients being cared for and how employees who speak up are being retaliated against.

New podcast from KUOW investigates rumors of high school sexual abuse

In the 1990s, a beloved high school teacher in Seattle was rumored to be sexually abusing a student. Students at the school newspaper started investigating. The teacher later died by suicide. A new podcast from KUOW dives deep into the story [https://www.kuow.org/podcasts/focus] - exploring what really happened back then. Isolde Raftery, managing editor at KUOW, was also a student in that high school in the 90s. She brings us the story.

How banned fish traps could help salmon in the PNW

Nearly a century ago, fish traps were banned [https://www.opb.org/news/article/fish-trap-salmon-columbia-river-ban/] on the Columbia River. The practice had been used by indigenous communities of the Northwest for a millenia, but when European settlers expanded west, they set up their own industrial versions, catching as much as 73 tons of salmon a season. Voters would ban these traps in Washington and Oregon in 1934 and 1948, respectively. But now some permitted experiments are being conducted using traps to sustainably harvest fish. Zach Theiler is a freelance writer who covered this issue for the Smithsonian Magazine [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/fish-traps-have-been-banned-on-the-columbia-river-for-nearly-a-century-could-bringing-them-back-help-save-salmon-180988439/]. He joins us to share more.