INSIDE
ENDING A DISAPPOINTING MONTH IN 2020 WITH A PAIR OF GROUSE |
OUTDOORS & REC, B1
WEEKEND EDITION
September 18, 2021
$1.50
FRONTLINE FATIGUE
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Grande Ronde Hospital house supervisor Danita Thamert speaks with other emergency room workers in the hospital’s intensive care unit on Monday, Aug. 30, 2021.
Grande Ronde Hospital nurses, staff cope with life during COVID-19
By ANDREW CUTLER
The Observer
L
A GRANDE — Danita Thamert, like many other health care professionals, believed the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines earlier this year would put
the darkest days of the pandemic behind her.
Thamert, a registered nurse at Grande Ronde Hospital, said that when cases were down this summer and a sense of normalcy was in the air, tired
hospital staff who had been on the front lines of the pandemic for more than a year were hopeful the worst was over. Now, with the delta variant cutting
a wide swath through the unvaccinated population in Union County, a weary hospital staff struggles to keep going.
“So many of the nurses are disheart-
ened and discouraged. We were all
excited. It was like, OK, we can unmask,
we can go on about our business and
have some semblance of normal,” said
Thamert, who has worked at Grande
Ronde for nearly 36 years.
As the virus continues to gain
ground, it is taking a toll on front line
medical workers, including Thamert.
“The stress is amazing,” she said.
“We try to encourage the nurses to
go get a massage, just go relax and do
something on your days off .”
Grande Ronde Hospital is a 25-bed
critical access hospital with 12 outpa-
tient clinics. Having the critical access
hospital designation means, among other
things, that the La Grande facility’s
average length of stay is 96 hours or less
for acute care patients. During normal
times, Thamert said, that was easy for
the hospital staff to accomplish.
These aren’t normal times.
“I had a physician call 39 hospitals
before we got a patient out where he
needed to be, with the services that we
didn’t off er that that patient needed,”
Thamert said. “And in the meantime,
we’re trying to do the best we can for
these patients.”
There are only so many med-
ical personnel to go around at Grande
Ronde Hospital, Thamert said, and that
too adds a level of complexity to the
COVID-19 impact.
“I’ve got a full ICU, everybody
knows it. So, OK, I can come in for a
little while. There goes your release
day, the day that you can rejuvenate
and recharge. It makes our job more
stressful,” she said.
Dealing with uncertainty, Thamert
said, clouds the day-to-day work of hos-
pital staff .
“As we continue on this journey, it’s
See, Toll/Page A5
Manufacturing, hospitality among worst hit industries
Editor’s Note: This is the third
in a fi ve-part series by EO Media
Group looking at the issue of the lack
of workers for jobs in Central and
Eastern Oregon — why workers are
not returning to previously held jobs
and how businesses are pivoting to
function without being fully staff ed.
By JAYSON JACOBY, SAMANTHA
O’CONNER and ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
BAKER CITY — Tyler Brown’s
family owns one restaurant in Baker
City that hasn’t
served a meal
since before the
fi rst COVID-19
case was con-
fi rmed in Baker
County.
But the
Browns’ chal-
lenges to keep enough workers to
run their two other restaurants are
so daunting that they can’t begin
to plan the reopening of the closed
business.
That’s the Sumpter Junction
INDEX
Classified ...............2B
Comics ....................5B
Crossword .............2B
Dear Abby .............B6
WEATHER
Horoscope .............3B
Lottery ....................A2
Obituaries ..............A3
Opinion ..................A4
TUESDAY
Outdoors ...............B1
Record ....................A3
Sports .....................A6
Sudoku ...................B5
restaurant, off Campbell Street near
Interstate 84. The Browns closed
the restaurant in March 2020. Inside
rest the memories of customers
who once frequented the restaurant,
told quietly by a single butter knife
resting on the edge of a booth table.
A newsstand is stacked high with
Baker City Herald issues blaring the
headline “Coronavirus Closures.”
They’re dated March 14, 2020. It
was three days before Gov. Kate
Brown banned dining inside restau-
rants. It was the last paper delivered
to Sumpter Junction.
Full forecast on the back of B section
Tonight
Sunday
44 LOW
56/42
A few showers
Cloudy, showers
TIRED OF DRY CHICKEN? TRY SOME THIGHS
During much of the rest of that
year, and continuing into 2021, the
number of customers at Baker Coun-
ty’s various restaurants was limited
due to the county’s COVID-19 risk
level.
Those restrictions meant it wasn’t
feasible to reopen Sumpter Junction,
Tyler Brown said.
Risk levels and restaurant limits
ended June 30, but Brown said it
remains a struggle to keep a suffi -
cient workforce to operate Barley
See, Workers/Page A5
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