Group continues work to increase DHHS presence in the region

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

DOVER-FOXCROFT — During the fall area residents had the opportunity to attend a public hearing with Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Commissioner Mary Mayhew, which gave them the opportunity to express concerns over a diminished agency presence and other challenges facing the area. Helping Hands With Heart, a group comprised of members representing various social service agencies, providers, nonprofits and others, held another follow-up meeting on Dec. 18 at the Morton Avenue Municipal Building with State Rep. Drew Gattine (D-Westbrook), the co-chair of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee.

“In the Health and Human Services Committee we spend a lot of time talking about issues that are critically important to the people of Maine,” Gattine said. “When I go to Augusta I’m pretty reliant on some wonderful people to tell me things, including some of the people in this room and they are some some pretty powerful people,” he said, as State Rep. Norm Higgins (R-Dover-Foxcroft) and State Rep. Paul Stearns (R-Guilford) were both present to discuss DHHS concerns.

He said a bill submitted by State Sen. Paul Davis (R-Sangerville) required the hearing in Piscataquis County with Mayhew, held in mid-October at the Penquis Higher Education Center. “We are going to get a report back and we are going to have a meeting but that’s all happening in Augusta,” Gattine said.

“I’m interested in hearing about the work you all do and thinking about how, working with your legislators, we can make things better,” he said. “For me this is not just an opportunity to focus on problems or beat up on the department, I just want to learn about what you people do.”

Stearns thanked Gattine for coming up to Dover-Foxcroft, saying, “Folks need to know there’s a lot of that in Augusta that doesn’t make headlines.,” after Gattine called him and said his visit would not be a political venture but an effort to improve the lives of residents. Higgins concurred, saying sometimes it is lost how much legislators work across the aisle.

“Commissioner Mayhew took two hours of some very tough questions from people and a lot of it focused on access,”Gattine, who was present for the session two months prior, said.

Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance Advocacy Program Manager and Dover-Foxcroft Selectmen Vice Chair Cindy Freeman Cyr said DHHS formerly had a full-time presence in Piscataquis County — nearly a decade ago the Dover-Foxcroft office closed and today Piscataqus is one three counties without a DHHS office. “It provided that presence and let people physically and mentally feel it was there,” she said.

“There always was a presence of meeting face to face with professionals,” Freeman Cyr said, saying then there was outreach by DHHS before this service was discontinued in the area. “I just think it contributes to a feeling of we don’t matter, we just have to deal with it.”

Freeman Cyr then mentioned a resident, with two children, of the Spruce Run-Womancare Alliance transitional housing. “If she was not in this subsidized apartment, I don’t what she would do,” Freeman Cyr said. She explained the transitional housing resident needed to travel to Bangor with an alliance advocate to meet with a DHHS employee on her Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits.

“It’s a huge difference to have an advocate with them, which is another issue,” Freeman Cyr said about the challenges of navigating DHHS.

“I think not having a presence here takes away from our ability to educate about what we have here,” Higgins said. He said that constituents will call him with, including a woman living in Brownville with her handicapped adult child and coping with dementia who was in tears thinking her insulation and medication dispensal would be coming to an end after misreading a DHHS letter.

“We have an individual who simply didn’t know where to go and her next door neighbor said call me,” Higgins said. “It seems to me when I run into those situations it’s a desperate dire point. I would say every couple of weeks I run into a situation where people don’t know where to turn and what services are available.”

Higgins added that for many traveling to Bangor for DHHS services is too difficult and “Dover would a stretch for some people, I think the geography handicaps us.”

Freeman Cyr said before a DHHS kiosk was installed in the lobby of the Penquis building in Dover-Foxcroft several years prior, there were DHHS outreach workers who utilized office space provided by community partners. “If the department were part of that with us I think it would make a difference,” she said. “It’s an incredible hardship for people to find a neighbor to take them there.”

Sue Mackey Andrews said the woman contacting Higgins, “Is a really good example of a situation that’s going to him sometimes. They are invisible to many of us, they used to talk to and speak to us.”

“We really need more than one day a week, we really do,” Feel Good Piscatauqis! Healthy Community Project Coordinator Erin Callaway said. “I would like four days a week of a DHHS presence here.”

“We will continue to engage with the department in a positive way to bring about positive change,” Gattine said. “We are going to to keep the conversation in a way that brings progress.”

Higgins said a Thanksgiving conversation with his family discussed what his granddaughter called “up Maine and down Maine” and the difference in access to services in the rural and more populated portions of the state. Stearns mentioned how Maine has a lower population, and therefore far fewer paying taxes, than a state such as Ohio so initiatives have to be done differently as a result.

“We need to build on a Maine that works for everybody and recognizes there are differences,” Gattine said. He then said DHHS would be presenting a report, possibly in early January, and ensuing comment session.

“We are hoping that report will really have some concrete recommendations,” he said. “My hope is we will schedule a chunk of time where the department will come and present that report. I hope the conversation progresses until things improve.”