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Gov DeWine deploys National Guard to hospitals as COVID deaths surpass 2020
- Quequau 5y agoThis is region locked. Why do the Americans need soldiers in hospitals? Are these some kind of special medical unit or something?
- commoner 5y agoHere's a copy of the article from archive.today: https://archive.md/PhD5l https://archive.md/PhD5l
- Quequau 5y agoThanks!
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- ev1 5y agoinsufficient staff, too many patients
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- tzs 5y agoFTA:> “Earlier in the pandemic, our concern in our hospitals was about beds, was about space, today is about personnel,” DeWine said. “22 months. 22 months of this pandemic has taken its toll on our health care workers, and that is certainly, certainly understandable.” > Of the 1,050 national guard troops being deployed, about 150 are medically trained personnel who can assist in helping patients. DeWine insisted that he and Adjutant General John Harris have worked together to ensure the deployment won’t mean pulling people away from a hospital day job to go work at a different hospital. The remaining 900 troops will be tasked with support services. > “They will do many things to help the hospitals in this time of great, great crisis,” DeWine said. “It will involve transport within the hospital, food and the environmental work that goes on in hospitals and is so very important every single day.”
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- hagbard_c 5y agoThis is not unique to the USA, e.g. in the Netherlands the army assists in testing and vaccination campaigns [1]. This is just common sense, those organisations have a large number of people (who in peacetime have not much more to do than exercise and maintain their equipment) who are trained to act in a short times notice and can deploy facilities which are not available to civil authorities. https://www.defensie.nl/onderwerpen/coronavirus-covid-19 https://www.defensie.nl/onderwerpen/coronavirus-covid-19
- lotsofpulp 5y agoThe organizations that employ healthcare workers, and indirectly the organizations that pay for healthcare, do not want to pay sufficient wages to incentivize people to work in the roles needed to provide the level of healthcare expected by the population. Instead of fixing the remuneration so that people are incentivized to work in healthcare, the easier solution for leaders is to “draft” who chose to be eligible to be drafted in emergencies and have them work. In reality, this is simply displacing healthcare workers from elsewhere. https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/rhbri5/comment/hoqan9k/ https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/rhbri5/comment/ho... https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/rhbri5/comment/hoqc90r/ https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/rhbri5/comment/ho... It is leaders of today destroying trust in emergency organizations, protocols, and structure to avoid paying higher wages. Why would anyone sign up for national guard when your role includes having to work because of insufficient wages causing lack of supply of labor?
- nojito 5y agoThis really doesn’t have anything to do with wages. Healthcare staff just don’t exist in the quantities we need right now. It’s a worst case scenario with a bunch declaring early retirement, even more changing professions due to COVID trauma, and lack of proper pipelines of staff.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoThis has everything to do with wages. Nurse to patient ratios have been getting smaller and smaller for many years now. It is a common topic in medical forums. It is combined with a worst case scenario, but it is compounded by the fact that a parent or young person is going to look at Mar 2020 and decide to not go into nursing because all they got was a sign saying they were heroes in exchange for working with an infectious disease, while many others got to sit at home on their computers. The situation for nursing homes is even worse than hospitals and nurses. It actually terrified me, even pre pandemic, to think about the level of care I would get if I had to be in an assisted living facility being taken care of by someone earning $12 per hour also taking care of 19 other people. I would rather opt for suicide.
- least 5y agoThe article says that about 150 of the 1050 troops deployed are medically trained. Most will be providing support services where needed. The national guard exists to answer the call of the state governor for all sorts of things. You’ll also see them deployed for state emergencies like a hurricane or tornado. Think of it as a quick to mobilize population of volunteers that are trained to do various things.
- simonbarker87 5y agoYes this is one of the main benefits of having military type orgs available even if not in conflict - you have a group of proven competent people, trained to execute orders that you can deploy into a variety if situations where people power is useful/important. The British Army were used for the 2012 Olympic as marshals etc as G4S messed up the preparations.
- 323 5y agoNot everything in a hospital requires medical training. Some stuff is purely logistical.
- logosmonkey 5y agoBecause our hospitals are over capacity - specifically well over 100% nurse to patient capacity - the guard members will likely be helping with all of the non-medical work nurses would normally do in non pandemic times. Stuff like cleanup, re-supply of rooms and supply closets, maybe some check in work that sort of thing.
- crisdux 5y agoThis is caused by staffing shortages. Our hospitals thought it was a good idea to fire nurses and staff over the summer.
- andrekandre 5y agowhy did they get fired?
- otabdeveloper4 5y agoIt's a secret we will never know the answer to. Maybe historians from the far future will find some clues.
- mberning 5y agoSome got fired. Some quit and found different, better paying jobs. The reality is that being on staff, working at the bedside in a hospital is a hard job with mediocre pay. But hospitals will give docs huge bonuses and pay travel nurses 2-3x what they pay nurses already on payroll. My wife was an RN at a major pediatric hospital and took a job at a private practice. Much easier job, closer to home, better pay. The hospital called her a month after she left and offered a 5k rehire bonus. Thank you, but no.
- crisdux 5y agoThey would not take the covid vaccine. These vaccine mandates have consequences.
- xwdv 5y agoNurses and doctors already get pumped full of vaccines as part of their job requirement, so what makes this particular vaccine so special?
- crisdux 5y agoIt has a more dangerous risk profile than the previously accepted vaccines. Our medical system should be guided by informed consent not coercion.
- gnsly 5y agoIt does not seem like a good idea to impose vaccine mandates on the people who have already done most of the work in the past 2 years: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/workforce/30-of-nurses-would-quit-over-vaccine-mandate-ohio-union-says.html https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/workforce/30-of-nurses...
- unpolloloco 5y agoWhen push comes to shove, 99.x% of healthcare professionals get it. So we're taking a rounding error in staffing. The problem is how many nurses just got up and quit in the past couple years
- lotsofpulp 5y ago> The problem is how many nurses just got up and quit in the past couple years Hence the problem is lack of sufficient compensation for their quality of life at work.
- unpolloloco 5y agoAgreed! The job got a lot worse and extracurricular demands shot up, so people quit. How do you get them back? Pay more.
- meepmorp 5y agoBut if they pay more, they’ll need to keep paying more even after the crisis is past. Which is pretty much what hospitals are trying to avoid.
- donkarma 5y agoThe only reason this disease was such a big issue was because hospitals were constantly operating on slim margins in the first place with ICUs regularly filling up in winter. How about some breathing room for all involved?
- hownottowrite 5y agoI have a friend in southern Ohio who is an ICU doc. They’ve been dealing with +140% occupancy for the last few weeks. Staff shortages in their hospital are due to people leaving the field entirely (either worn out, tired of patient abuse, or actually dead). Vaccine mandates had almost zero impact.
- crowbahr 5y ago95% of Ohio deaths were the unvaccinated. Vaccine mandates clearly helped. 9 of 10 patients in Ohio hospitals are unvaccinated. The issue with vaccine mandates is they weren't strict enough.
- adnmcq999 5y agoI think what they mean is nobody got vaxxed
- lotsofpulp 5y agoThey meant the number of healthcare workers leaving the field due to vaccine mandates was negligible.
- cko 5y ago> Your antiscientific rhetoric is bullshit. I didn't read it that way. > The issue with vaccine mandates is they weren't strict enough. That was how I interpreted GP's statement.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- crowbahr 5y agoYou caught me before my edit. I realized I was wrong in the read on the comment and revised it within a minute of posting.
- ndespres 5y ago
- xwdv 5y agoWhy on Earth are people still not getting vaccinated?
- ctyc 5y agoBecause some people have already had COVID, received natural antibodies as a result, and are relying on time-tested science, logic, and intuition in their personal decision to not also get a set of shots + [x] boosters so they can be “safe”. By the way, do me a favor and solve for x in the above equation! And solve again a year from now. And again 5 years from now.
- _Microft 5y agoInfluenza, tetanus, TBE and polio vaccinations also require repeat shots from time to time - and there are certainly more as these are only the ones that I can remember off the cuff.
- ctyc 5y agoIn the case of the flu, the jury has always been out in it’s effectiveness due to the seasonal variation (the flu shot (notice how that’s never been called a vaccine, for good reason) is based on previous year’s strain. Lumping that in with the rest of the diseases on your list where a vaccine can and does provide true immunity is a massive case of apples and oranges.
- _Microft 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_vaccine
- BobbyJo 5y agoI completely agree that having been infected with COVID should excuse one from vaccine mandates, at least within some time frame. However, that isn't why most of the unvaccinated are unvaccinated. Only a few million people had been infected with COVID in the U.S. at the time the vaccine was released, around 1% of the population.
- neonate 5y agohttps://archive.md/PhD5l https://archive.md/PhD5l
- adnmcq999 5y agoIf only being a nurse paid as much as attending virtual scrum meetings
- unpolloloco 5y agoIt does if you're willing to be a travel nurse and work on covid floors. I've been hearing $6000/week numbers being thrown around (and some nurses are picking up two contracts at a time!). It's insanely shitty work right now (surrounded by people dying left and right and understaffed on top of that, but the pay is good...).
- lotsofpulp 5y agoHave to incorporate a premium for the travel nurse job being not in your home office, income being more volatile than a salaried job, and travel nurses are independent contractors so they have to pay for housing/health insurance/taxes. The $6k per week easily comes down to $3k per week or less of comparable W-2 income, which you can come close to or surpass doing virtual scrum meetings with none of the income volatility of nursing nor the messiness or risk of being infected or attacked. And not seeing your family/friends after work.
- unpolloloco 5y agoThe travel job typically has housing built in too and often per diems. So probably closer to 4-5k equivalent! But quality of life isn't great to your point. Software is the objectively better job there unless you're really passionate about nursing!
- MobileVet 5y agoBeyond Covid, this is a very scary situation that will only get worse as the numbers continue to climb in the region. You do NOT want to need medical care of any kind right now in NE Ohio. We just canceled our trip to see family in Cleveland as a result. My youngest has a bad cold (PCR negative) but if that were to get passed to my elderly parents or asthmatic nephews, things could escalate quickly. It almost doesn’t matter how severe Omicron cases are if the net result is hospital overload. https://www.cleveland19.com/2021/12/17/cleveland-clinic-postponing-non-urgent-surgeries-requiring-hospital-bed/ https://www.cleveland19.com/2021/12/17/cleveland-clinic-post... Considering that these hospitals are already full, this will get worse before it gets better.
- tomjen3 5y agoIt has been two years at this point, it is a shame on those in charge that the hospitals aren't up to handling the issue now. I wish it was a criminal matter, but unfortunately it isn't the case.
- MobileVet 5y agoClearly fault lies in many areas but how could admins avoid this? Their staff is exhausted and quitting far beyond normal attrition levels. The public continues to get sick and now another surge is upon them. What knob do you turn that they haven’t?
- loudtieblahblah 5y agoIf we cared about up front treatment as much as we cared about vaccinations and stopped seeing one as preventing the uptake of the other we'd see a lot less hospitalizations.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago> What knob do you turn that they haven’t? Higher pay.
- native_samples 5y ago
- jleyank 5y agoI would appreciate any help in squaring things like this story with seeing 50k plus in (indoor) sports events with no masking or other remediation measures. And they’re in the same or adjacent states. Is it merely that they’re tolerating the deaths and sickness as less important that their inconvenience?
- ssharp 5y agoBecause 65% of Ohio's adult population has chosen to receive vaccines and want to live normal lives because of it?
- jleyank 5y agoSo they think that covid is over for them so they can go on? What about the unvaxed amongst them?
- ssharp 5y agoWhy should a person who is vaxxed worry about being around unvaxxed, unmasked people in public indoor settings that they’ve chosen to be in?
- jleyank 5y agoUhh, delta and omicron are contagious to doubly vaxxed. And spreadable by these people as well. You’re gambling to some degree that you won’t have a problem or you won’t be around those who are at higher risk. I hope it’s a good gamble with omicron as this will greatly facilitate switching to endemic but nobody’s sure yet.
- ssharp 5y agoThe risks of someone my age having serious COVID issues are rather low. I am also fully vaxxed on Pfizer and don't have major underlying health issues. I'm perfectly accepting of the any personal risk because the risks are extremely low. In fact, I had COVID recently (kids caught it at school and brought it home), and my symptoms were very mild and didn't prevent me from working of functioning close to normal. Of course, we all followed proper quarantining guidelines and did not have contact outside of our home with anyone during that period. If other people who are at higher risk have not chosen to appropriately mitigate their risks with the numerous tactics at their disposal, such as vaccination, masking, social distancing, etc. than I do not feel much of a duty to avoid being around them, if they are going to be at places I want to be.
- mcculley 5y agoI am a little skeptical about the claims in the article that Ohio COVID deaths are higher in 2021 than in 2020. I have been building tooling around the CDC excess deaths reports [0]. Ohio looks like it did not have the same peaks in 2021 as it did in 2020 [1]. There would have to be 11,778 more deaths recorded at this point to catch up to 2020. Certainly the situation is unacceptable and terrible. But I am not convinced that it is much worse in 2021 than in 2020. [0]: https://mcculley.github.io/VisualizingObservedDeaths/ https://mcculley.github.io/VisualizingObservedDeaths/ [1]: https://mcculley.github.io/VisualizingObservedDeaths/Ohio.png https://mcculley.github.io/VisualizingObservedDeaths/Ohio.pn... [2]: Ohio deaths: 2018: 124,296 2019: 123,359 2020: 142,210 2021: 130,432
- disambiguation 5y agoI came across an amazing resource the other day that provides data driven insights specifically to Ohio's covid situation, and I'm surprised not to see it in this article. https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboards/key-metrics/hospitalizations https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboa... This site provides stats that breakdown hospitalizations by age and race and also reports inpatient and ICU capacity. It seems right now hospitals are at about 80% capacity, and out of total capacity 20% is due to covid cases.