LOCAL/REGION
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
A7
National Guard members lend a nuch-needed hand
Several Eastern Oregon Hospitals say the extra
staffi ng will help exhausted health care workers
By ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
LA
GRANDE
—
National Guard members
have arrived at many East-
ern Oregon hospitals as
the COVID-19 pandemic
reaches its apex in recent
cases caused by the viru-
lent delta variant.
Saint Alphonsus Med-
ical Center, Baker City;
Wallowa Memorial Hos-
pital,
Enterprise;
and
Grande Ronde Hospital,
La Grande; each have citi-
zen-soldiers on site to help,
in addition to the Guard
members already at Blue
Mountain Hospital, John
Day.
At least 20 Guard mem-
bers were deployed to
assist in operations at hos-
pitals in nonclinical roles.
The hospitals moved to fi ll
in gaps with the National
Guard soldiers, placing
them in positions through-
out the hospitals as ancil-
lary support staff .
Staff at the overbur-
dened health care centers
more than welcomed the
added support for roles
such as front door screen-
ers, which clinical staff
often had fi lled.
“That helps us be able
to deploy our clinical peo-
ple back to clinical work,”
said Priscilla Lynn, presi-
dent and chief nursing offi -
cer at Saint Alphonsus.
Freeing up resources
for the health care staff
improves effi ciency during
a time when worker short-
ages abound across nearly
every industry, and when
nurses and other clinical
staff have been taxed by an
unrelenting 18 months of
fi ghting a pandemic.
“All of the entry level
positions across our county
— it’s diffi cult to fi ll those
positions, and we’re expe-
riencing that same thing,”
Lynn said. “We’ve had
staff out, diffi cult to fi ll-in
positions that are open for
a really long time. So hav-
ing the Guard here (means)
the staff is getting a little
reprieve. The staff is really
grateful. We’ve had an
exhausted crew.”
Blue Mountain Hos-
pital District in Grant
County was one of the fi rst
places where the National
Guard was activated after
Gov. Kate Brown’s emer-
gency order set in motion
a surge of nearly 1,500 cit-
izen-soldiers in support of
health care workers and
hospitals.
The fi rst 500 were
deployed near the mid-
dle of August, while the
remaining 1,000 were set
to be deployed and acti-
vated in the following
weeks.
Grande Ronde Hospi-
tal welcomed 10 National
Guard members on Mon-
day, Sept. 13, to help sup-
port operations, according
to the hospital.
Many of the recently
activated soldiers were
La Grande locals, includ-
ing National Guard Spc.
Pamela Fredrick, a native
of
Micronesia,
who
recently earned her degree
in communications at East-
ern Oregon University.
“I’m always ready
whenever we get called
in,” she said. “We were
told beforehand that this
might happen.”
Fredrick, whose job title
in the National Guard is
culinary specialist, found
herself at home in the
kitchen at the hospital,
working alongside hospital
staff and fellow guardsman
Spc. Jacob Jensen.
Upstairs in the surgical
center, Spc. Renay Mono-
han, of La Grande, assisted
with the environmen-
tal crew by sanitizing and
cleaning a procedure room.
In addition to the sup-
port from the National
Guard, some hospitals
have received a boost in
clinical staff through pro-
grams, such as SERV-OR,
that allocate nurses and cli-
nicians across the country.
SERV-OR features a
roster of medical work-
ers — including physi-
cians, nurses and emer-
gency medical technicians
— who signed up as vol-
unteers to assist health
care centers during the
heightened infection rate
of COVID-19 across the
state.
“We have a hero in our
midst,” Lynn said. “We
did get a nurse through the
SERV-OR program who
has been working some
shifts and has a few shifts
left in a volunteer staff .
Super grateful for that
amazing nurse. We also
requested through the OHA
processes for travel nurses.
Nursing staff are expected.
We have a couple starting
(Sept. 14) and expect a few
more to trickle in through
the week.”
Grande Ronde Hospi-
tal is expected to bolster its
health care force through
a traveling nurse program,
according to Mardi Ford,
director of communica-
tions and marketing at the
hospital.
Wallowa
Memorial
Hospital welcomed two
National Guard mem-
bers on Sept. 13 who will
serve as front door screen-
ers, according to Brooke
Pace, director of commu-
nications and public rela-
tions at the hospital. Addi-
tionally, the hospital is
receiving support through
two additional nurses
staff ed through a program
called Favorite Healthcare
Staffi ng, a traveling nurse
program.
Alex Wittwer/La Grande Observer
Oregon National Guard Spc. Renay Monohan cleans a room Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021, at Grande
Ronde Hospital, La Grande. Monohan, a La Grande local, works as a health care medic as her
regular job with the U.S. Forest Service.
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