National Guard lending much-needed support

Sep. 21—Since arriving at Ohio County Healthcare, Kentucky National Guard members have helped fill important gaps in staffing as the healthcare facility incorporates its emergency staffing models to accommodate for the influx of COVID-19 patients.

The Kentucky National Guard arrived at the hospital last week and has been acting in a supportive role for healthcare workers at the facility, according to Second Lt. Matthew Chinn, who has helped facilitate the process.

"We're ... helping out with the kind of background tasks so that the nurses can focus on patients," he said. "The first day, we helped clear out the old ICU, clearing out some old equipment, some old storage materials, allowing the hospital to use it as a holding area for two extra patients."

Chinn said there are nine National Guard members stationed at the hospital, assisting mostly with supply distribution throughout the hospital and assistive administrative tasks.

He said he expects to remain at Ohio County Healthcare at least for another week, if not two more weeks.

"Things are going well," Chinn said. "I feel like my personnel integrated quite well with the hospital, and the hospital has been quite accommodating as far as teaching my guys what they need to know in order to perform to the best of their ability."

Cece Robinson, OCH's director of community relations, said the National Guard has been a large asset to the health care staff throughout the past week.

"I think one of the crucial roles that our National Guardsmen have played is help as a morale booster," she said. "Our staff has been battling COVID-19 for going on almost two years, and it takes a tremendous amount of additional resources to test, treat and vaccinate our community members. Our healthcare workers have had a nice morale boost to kind of see these Guardsmen be willing to serve and to help and provide this service to our hospital and community."

Robinson said that as the hospital has implemented several emergency staffing measures to ensure there is a proper level of care for the hospital and its medical surgical unit — in particular due to staffing shortages and an influx of COVID-19 patients — National Guard members have filled important roles that have allowed staff to focus on other aspects of their work.

Michelle Hickerson, OCH's director of patient navigation, thanked the members stationed at the hospital Monday afternoon, citing their assistance during an especially difficult time where her department has experienced the loss of another staff member in addition to staffing shortages.

"We lost our department supervisor unexpectedly in August and had some employees that left without notice, so they've really given us just time to breathe, focus on healing and allow us to just build up staffing gaps," she said. "They've just really helped us take care of our community while the staff recovers from a lot of loss and heartache in a difficult month."

Robinson said the community has been generous in expressing gratitude toward National guard members, but the best way to show support is to get vaccinated.

"We'd like to encourage everyone to honor your Guardsmen by getting vaccinated," she said. "These individuals have left their civilian jobs and left their families to come here and take care of the Ohio County community, and what better way to say thank you than to protect yourself and protect them by getting vaccinated."

Christie Netherton, cnetherton@messenger-inquirer.com, 270-691-7360