Soldiers deployed to Mon Health in Morgantown

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Statewide hospitalizations are at 1,009, nearing the record of 1,012 hit during the Delta surge of the coronavirus.

Now, healthcare workers and support staff have been at a pandemic fever pitch work pace for more than two years and it’s taking a toll. On WAJR’s Talk of the Town Mon Health Systems President and CEO David Goldberg said they have eight soldiers from the West Virginia National Guard easing the burden.

” We have about 80 people out now- either on quarantine or they have it, or self-monitoring,” Goldberg said. ” Those eight are filling the gaps significantly.”

The training offered to the soldiers by state leaders enables them to take on administrative, support and environmental tasks. The soldiers free more people to work directly with patients.

“Many of them are doing housekeeping, environmental service, they’re helping with food service, transport,” Goldberg said. ” They’re helping in our testing tent. Two of them are actually helping us swab.”

Goldberg said quality of care is the priority. To maintain a high level of care Mon Health leadership weighs the importance of every aspect of hospital operations.

“The doctors, the nurses and the respiratory therapists are vital- especially during a pandemic attacking your respiratory system,” Goldberg said. ” But, you have all the support. I don’t call it bedside, everyone is at the patient side.”

This far into the pandemic, Goldberg said they are watching numbers very close in an effort to keep the work flow manageable at all levels.

“We meet four to seven times a day to look at staffing, the acuity of our patients, ER flow and operating room flow,” Goldberg said. ” To make sure we don’t stretch our staff with more patients than they can manage.”

Goldberg has used all initiatives approved by the state to recruit new healthcare workers, but they have tried to manage the patient population with people on staff.

“If they overtime or extra shifts we’ll pay them extra than their normal wage- our board has approved that,” Goldberg said. “We’ve filled 70 to 90 shifts over multiple months paying our own people what we would have paid an agency.”