More National Guard members headed to Ohio medical facilities – 13abc Action News
TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – Ohio has hit its highest hospitalization rate of the pandemic.
Governor Mike DeWine is now adding additional National Guard members to medical facilities to alleviate the case load for health workers.
The hope as with the first round of the Guard and now with the second round is that it’s all just temporary and that when their work is done they are headed home.
Most recently we’ve seen the National Guard in Hancock County helping to fill in the nursing shortage at the Fox Run Assisted Living facility in Findlay. They’ve come to larger facilities like Mercy Health Saint Vincent’s and ProMedica Toledo Hospital.
“We have vulnerable people, there’s no one to walk in the door. When that happens the Ohio national guard walks in the door,” said Governor DeWine.
“To be able to allocate those resources where the crisis is most dire is something built into our planning for this operation,” said Major General John Harris of the Ohio National Guard.
Larger hospitals where you’d expect larger populations are natural places to need extra help but smaller assisted living facilities are new.
“It’s not a very usual situation with nursing homes but occasionally it does in fact happen,” said Gov. DeWine.
The 1250 Guard members will be going wherever they are needed some of them with a medical specialty some without. They’ll be filling in whatever gaps are there but that does put a strain on Ohio’s entire economic system.
“Remember that every person that the national guard deploys or mobilizes is coming from somewhere. So how long is it sustainable for your local restaurant to be with a degraded workforce,” said Maj. Gen. Harris.
“The member of the guard will not stay one more day than they’re absolutely needed,” said DeWine.
The governor said Wednesday that there are 160 Guard personnel currently stations inside medical facilities in our region right now.
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