SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2021
BAKER CITY HERALD — A5
LOCAL & REGION
Shortage of employees leads to altered business models
across Oregon. Nearly all res-
taurants saw a huge uptick in
customers. But where demand
reached new heights, a new
challenge appeared — staffi ng
the restaurants which have
balanced narrow margins and
threats of closure over 2020.
In order to keep employees
from burning out, Millar cut
operating hours and closed
down the brewery on Tues-
days to keep what employees
she has from becoming over-
By DAVIS CARBAUGH and
whelmed in an industry well
ALEX WITTWER
known for its high turnover
EO Media Group
rate and low wages.
LA GRANDE — Enter-
“I think we’ve reached the
prise isn’t the largest town
mindset of ‘we have what we
in Eastern Oregon, with a
have,’ ” she said. “We’ll keep
population of 2,052. But it’s
just a few miles from the ever hiring as much as possible,
but we need to understand
popular town of Joseph and
its vistas across Wallowa Lake that we’ve got to adjust with
to the peaks of the Eagle Cap what the situation is instead
of waiting for the situation to
Wilderness.
adjust itself.”
In a normal summer,
Terminal Gravity Brewing in
Enterprise would be busy all Not much change
days of the week serving local,
Millar is not alone. Several
handcrafted beers to patrons restaurants across the region
and traditional brewpub fare. have reported challenges with
But due to a labor shortage
hiring workers over the sum-
this summer the company had mer. Some blamed expanded
to cut hours during its lunch
federal unemployment ben-
rush, and close altogether on
efi ts as the culprit for lower
Tuesdays.
workforce participation, even
though the region has seen
Natalie Millar, chief ex-
ecutive offi cer of the Wallowa lower unemployment benefi ts
County brewery, says that it’s claims now than it had before
the pandemic started. Others
an inevitability that they’ll
recognized the high cost of
have to close for even more
days as their skeleton crew of living, taxes and low supply of
housing which has made rents
cooks, servers and hostesses
return to school — high school, and home prices balloon.
Millar explained that while
to be exact.
“Heading into fall it is look- business picked up consider-
ably over the summer, the lack
ing like we’re going to have
of staffi ng and overburdened
to cut an additional day and
probably cut lunches,” Millar industry has a cascading effect
with other restaurants, caus-
said. “It is pretty brutal.”
ing a feedback loop of demand
Demand for restaurant
and short supply. As one busi-
meals soared over the sum-
ness cuts its hours, patrons
mer as restrictions lifted
able. Bruce and his daughter,
Harvey, own both Timber’s
Feedery in Elgin and Local
Harvest in La Grande.
The COVID-19 pandemic
has presented unimaginable
challenges in staffi ng for both
restaurants. With the short-
age of workers and revolving
mandates for public dining,
the owners have adjusted to
rolling with the punches.
“This far into it and with
what we’ve seen, the rules
have changed and the rules
are different and will change
again,” Bruce Rogers said.
“We’re just chameleons at this
Alex Wittwer/The (La Grande) Observer point. We just change and go
with the fl ow while doing our
Mariah Davis pours out an IPA for a fl ight of beers
best to remain a profi table
for customers at Terminal Gravity Brewery and Pub
business.”
on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. Terminal Gravity recently
On top of the shortage of
closed down operations on Tuesdays following a staff
workers, Timber’s Feedery
shortage. Many of the kitchen staff are high school
is facing a hurdle as Harvey
students, who have returned to school, leaving the
Rogers takes maternity leave.
brewpub further short staffed.
She said she typically works
open on Main Street so we’re open to close every day, and
look elsewhere for a meal.
extremely busy, but extremely her absence has forced Tim-
“It’s a funny, weird thing
short staffed,” said Jessica
ber’s to limit orders to takeout
where I think we would all
and outdoor dining for the
be excited if there were three Eastland, manager at Main
more restaurants because we Event Sports Bar and Eatery. time being.
Closing indoor dining is
just need more places to send “If we had an adequate staff,
it would be a very profi table
a technique that the owners
people to eat so it’s a unique
time for us but that’s the
used on both restaurants
situation over here,” Millar
thing — we’ve got people
to save costs with a limited
said.
staff during the early part of
Earlier this summer, Baker who are working overtime
the pandemic. The Rogerses
City’s Main Event Sports Bar hours when we could have
had other employees working looked at new ideas in order
and Eatery was experienc-
ing severe worker burnout in those hours so that we weren’t to stay afl oat during unstable
paying more in wages. Our
times.
June due to staffi ng short-
wages right now are through
“When you couldn’t have
ages which led to closing the
the roof because we have so
inside dining, we switched
restaurant on Tuesdays.
many employees that are
over to to-go and delivery
The situation there has
working overtime every single only,” Bruce Rogers said. “We
changed little. While the
sports bar is open seven days week because we are so short had to start up a delivery
staffed.”
service to remain competitive
a week, they’ve had to cut
at that point, but when we
evening hours, close earlier
and open later throughout the Rolling with the punches opened back up again we shut
the delivery off.”
week.
For Bruce Rogers, CO-
Both Timber’s Feedery
“We’re very, very busy. On VID-19 has presented the
Sundays and Mondays we’re challenge of keeping not one, and Local Harvest changed
hours from seven days a
one of the only restaurants
but two businesses profi t-
week to fi ve days a week,
and both close an hour ear-
lier than they used to. One
advantage to owning two
restaurants is the ability to
rotate staff from one location
to another if one restaurant
is short.
“We have several employ-
ees that are able to work at
both places, mostly our top
three people are very ver-
satile for us,” Bruce Rogers
said. “They fi ll in everywhere
for us.”
Older, younger helping fi ll
gaps
With pandemic-related
federal unemployment
programs ending on or before
Monday, Sept. 6, Bruce Rog-
ers is expecting an increase
in prospective employees. In
addition, students returning
to attend Eastern Oregon
University in the fall are
promising for fi lling positions.
To cope with employ-
ment challenges, the owners
have adjusted the scope of
employees compared to who
they would typically hire in
the past.
“The demographics have
changed,” Bruce Rogers said.
“We’ve started hiring young-
er people and we’ve started
hiring older people. When we
fi nd people that are qualifi ed,
we try to snatch them up.”
Bruce Rogers noted that
both restaurants have been
hiring both younger and
older employees than in the
past. The restaurant hired
two 16-year-olds in the sum-
mer and had a family friend
who is a retired teacher come
work for the restaurants.
“We’ve leaned on friends
and family to help us through
this time as well,” he said.
Idaho patients in hospital halls amid COVID rationed care
By REBECCA BOONE
Associated Press
BOISE — Amid the
Idaho coronavirus surge that
prompted offi cials to autho-
rize hospitals to ration health
care, Army soldiers sent to
one hospital have traded
their fatigues for personal
protective equipment to help
treat a fl ood of infected
patients.
The conference center at
Kootenai Health hospital in
Coeur d’Alene has been con-
verted into a fi eld hospital of
sorts — with some of its class-
rooms fi lled with hospital
beds where patients receive
oxygen or get monoclonal
antibody treatment, hospital
offi cials said.
At the nearby main
hospital building in the city of
about 50,000, some emer-
gency room patients receive
care in a converted lobby and
others get it in hallways. Ur-
gent surgeries have been put
on hold and some patients in
critical condition are facing
long waits for intensive care
beds.
The hospital is licensed
for 200 regular medical beds
— not including the ones
designed for children, women
giving birth and people
experiencing a mental health
crisis — and on Wednesday
had 218 “med surge” patients,
said Jeremy Evans, the
hospital’s COVID-19 incident
commander.
Meanwhile, about 500 of
its roughly 3,600 clinical and
staff positions are empty, he
said, forcing managers to ask
administrative staffers and
others to take on additional
work like cleaning hospital
rooms.
The overwhelmed hospital
is at the epicenter of a corona-
virus crisis for the northern
part of the state — and where
state offi cials this week au-
thorized “crisis standards of
care” status.
That allowed Kootenai
Health, where an entire fl oor
has been turned into a make-
shift COVID-19 unit, and
other hospitals in the region
to ration health care during
the surge.
Public health offi cials
are warning the health care
rationing could soon spread
statewide, forcing already
traumatized doctors and
nurses to make gut-wrench-
ing decisions about who will
get life-saving care.
Newly confi rmed corona-
virus infection cases in Idaho
are surging and the state is
now averaging more than 950
new cases every day, accord-
ing Johns Hopkins University
— an increase of more than
41% over the past two weeks.
Idaho is also last among
U.S. states with only about
45% of residents having
received at least one dose of
COVID-19 vaccine, according
to the Centers for Disease
Control. Just under 40% of
residents are fully vaccinated,
making Idaho 48th the na-
tion compared to other states
and Washington, D.C.
“For the rest of the state,
we remain dangerously close
to crisis standards of care,”
Idaho Department of Health
and Welfare Director Dave
Jeppesen warned Tuesday,
when there were just nine
available intensive care unit
beds in the entire state.
The crush of patients has
forced Kootenai Health into
“doing things that were not
normal — way outside of
normal — at times,” said hos-
pital chief of staff Dr. Robert
Scoggins.
“Almost every day at this
point we are having cardiac
arrest from patients when
their oxygen levels dip too
low and we can’t supply them
with enough oxygen,” he said.
Kootenai Health recently
installed a larger oxygen
tank in an effort to treat all
the patients. If the hospital’s
caseload grows, Scoggins said,
the hospital’s oxygen delivery
infrastructure — the actual
pipes that run through the
walls — may not be able to
handle the demand.
While many of northern
Idaho’s smaller, rural hospi-
tals have not been forced to
ration health care, they fre-
quently have no place to send
their critically ill patients
who would normally be trans-
ferred to Kootenai Health.
Hospitals in neighbor-
ing Washington state would
normally help with the over-
fl ow, but they are also full of
patients, Jeppesen said.
Peter Mundt, the spokes-
man for Gritman Medical
Center in the Idaho city of
Moscow said the institution
is struggling to fi nd hospi-
tal destinations to transfer
patients with serious heart
problems and other condi-
tions unrelated to COVID-19.
“Our ability to accommo-
date non-COVID patients is
very strained at this point,”
Mundt said. “Even though
we’re all different hospitals,
we normally work together as
collaborative colleagues and
peers. We need it to work as a
giant system and that system
is just under severe strain
right now.”
In Lewiston, St. Joseph
Regional Medical Center is
also operating “at the very
edge of our capacity,” spokes-
woman Sam Skinner said.
“Our current situation is
worse than it’s ever been,”
Skinner said. “As we continue
to see the COVID-19 surge in
our community, the impact on
one hospital can quickly have
this rippling effect. Our low
community vaccination rates
are putting an incredible
burden on our community.”
The Idaho Department of
Health and Welfare moved
northern and north-central
Idaho into the crisis designa-
tion Monday evening, giving
hospitals a legal and ethical
template to use while ration-
ing care.
The designation will re-
main in effect until there are
enough resources — includ-
ing staffi ng, hospital beds
and equipment or a drop in
the number of patients — to
provide normal levels of treat-
ment to all patients.
Under the guidelines,
patients are given priority
scores based on a number of
factors that impact their like-
lihood of surviving a health
crisis.
Those deemed most in
need of care and most likely
to benefi t from it are put
on priority lists for scarce
resources like ICU beds.
Others in dire need but
with lower chances of surviv-
ing will be given “comfort
care” to help keep them pain-
free whether they succumb to
their illnesses or recover.
Other patients with seri-
ous but not life-threatening
medical problems will face
delays in receiving care until
resources are available.
Jeppesen stressed Tues-
day that vaccines are the best
way to reduce the demand on
hospitals. Data from the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention shows that
full vaccination with any of
the currently available coro-
navirus vaccines dramatically
reduces the risk of requiring
hospitalization for a coronavi-
rus infection.
State health offi cials have
also asked people to not go to
emergency rooms for asymp-
tomatic coronavirus tests or
other matters that can be
handled in doctor’s offi ces,
but said no one should hold
off emergency room visits for
potentially serious conditions.
They warned people people to
be prepared to wait for care.
Idaho’s hospitals have
struggled to fi ll empty nurs-
ing, housekeeping and other
health care positions, in part
because some staffers have
left because they are burned
out by the strain of the
pandemic and because oth-
ers have been quarantined
because they were exposed to
COVID-19.
Late last month, Idaho
Gov. Brad Little called in 220
medical workers available
through federal programs
and mobilized 150 Idaho Na-
tional Guard soldiers to help
hospitals cope with the surge.
Veteran's Appreciation Day!
VETERAN SERVICES & INFO WILL BE AVAILABLE AT THE CLUBHOUSE.
Sunday, September 12, 2021
PARTICIPANTS ARE 9am
ENCOURAGED
TO CALL AHEAD FOR TEE
to 3pm
TIMES (9AM TO 2PM). PLEASE CALL 541-523-2358.
CURRENT STATE COVID GUIDELINES WILL BE FOLLOWED.
Sunday,
12, 2021
2021
Sunday, September
September 12,
9am to
to 3pm
3pm
9am