Bring Dr. Bassam Hashem home!

As a community, we are well aware of the fact that we need all the physicians in this county! Roseburg is a medically underserved county and when one of our physicians is gone for an extended period of time, all citizens suffer!

Dr. Hashem had to leave urgently for his homeland of Syria to help with his ailing father. He has now been gone for three months, held up with the bureaucracy of Homeland Security. While Homeland Security is a vital and necessary entity, the Department of State has disregarded the fact that he has lived in the United States for over 10 years and has served the people of Douglas County for over 4 years. He has already fulfilled the government's requirement to serve a medically underserved area, which was 3 years.

Even after fulfilling this requirement he continued to stay and serve the citizens of Douglas County. This same government is detaining his return! Adding to this problem, his 2 remaining colleagues, Razvan Gosman, M.D. and Luana Nedita, M.D. cannot meet the demands of treating their patients, Dr. Hashems patients and the demands of hospital call coverage.

Due to this, all new patient consults are having to be referred outside of Roseburg! There is not hospital coverage 1 out of every 3 weeks. This means patients requiring critical care are having to be sent over 80 miles away!

Let me ask you, if you or one of your loved ones required critical care, would you want to be sent miles away? It could be a matter of life or death!