Soldiers switch to scrubs

For a bunch of soldiers, they sure look like health care and culinary staff – and for at least the next week, they’ll do the work of health care and culinary staff.
Twenty members of the Minnesota National Guard arrived in Owatonna last week, deployed to Benedictine Living Community as part of the state’s Long Term Care Response Team designed to address staffing shortages at skilled nursing facilities.
It took less than a month from the application process to literal boots on the ground.
“I absolutely wanted help,” said Benedictine Executive Director Lisa Kern. She applied for the assistance Nov. 24; the facility was assessed for its need on Dec. 15 and received word the next day that it had qualified. Members of the National Guard were in the building and training on Dec. 22.
It’s not about COVID, though – not specifically. In fact, the facility must be out of an outbreak to qualify for the assistance.
The residents at Benedictine Living Community have been “very healthy,” Kern said, with just five positive cases in the past 22 months, and no deaths. Only one or two of those cases showed slight symptoms, she said.
“Our staff has been very diligent about infection control and safety practices,” Kern said. “I can’t say enough about their commitment not to bring illness here.”
Instead, the staffing shortage is the result of a combination of factors – and has been looming for years.
Nationwide, nursing homes are seeing a shortage of 20,000-30,000 employees, Kern said. They’re going to other health care facilities that are paying more in a competitive field or finding positions in other industries that pay more.
“A few” were lost to burnout brought on by the pandemic, she said, amid frustration that “we as management have to ask for more and more” from a shrinking workforce.
As visiting restrictions were put into place, “our staff became (the residents’) family and friends,” Kern said, and in addition to their regular responsibilities, “they were pulled from other things to help with window visits and the technology” of virtual visits.
“COVID was very tough in and of itself,” Kern said. “We had no idea what was ahead of us, but we have a core group that is passionate about caring for the most vulnerable.”
Now there are several new faces – though behind masks – like Tom Bremner and Shawn Thao, two soldiers who will share the mission at Benedictine.
Neither has worked in health care but spent the past several weeks training at Camp Ripley. The soldiers deployed across the state to skilled nursing facilities like Benedictine Living Community have been trained as certified nursing assistance, temporary nursing assistants, or culinary assistants.
“I’d say 90% of our team didn’t know each other before we got here,” Bremner said of the group of 20 in Owatonna. They are staying at a local hotel during their two-week stint in scrubs.
As Kern said in a letter sent to the families of residents, “they are truly heroes who are taking care of our heroes.”
Thao, of Little Canada, is a quartermaster officer in the National Guard; his civilian job is as owner/operator of a box truck, making deliveries.
When the National Guard asked for five volunteers from Thao’s unit, “as a leader, I thought it was my role to step up, and hope for someone else to step up with me,” he said.
Bremner, of Prior Lake, is an IT specialist in the Guard, and the supervisor of a liquor store. He didn’t volunteer – at first.
After being selected for the training, there was eventually an opportunity for him to step away from the deployment.
“I volunteered to stay on,” Bremner said. As an exercise science major in college, he had a working knowledge of some of the vocabulary used in health care, but it was also personal.
“My dad and grandpa were both in long-term care,” he said.
The soldiers are all paid as if on an active-duty deployment for the Army, including a housing allowance.
“There was definitely some financial incentive for some people,” Bremner said, though for others, it could be a pay cut.
In addition to his personal connection, “it’s about being out in public in an apolitical situation. It’s a different reception” than his last deployment, which was after the murder of George Floyd.
“Not everyone was happy to see us,” Bremner said.
For Thao, “it’s more about giving back to the community; my goal when I joined was always to deploy.”
The plan is for the troops to help for two weeks; the facility’s needs will be reassessed on Jan. 5.
In the meantime, Kern is training new hires in the culinary area; the facility continues to actively seek new employees to shore up its entire staff.
If the situation requires it, both Thao and Bremner said they will volunteer to extend their stay in Owatonna.
“I’m part of the Army, so I do what’s needed,” Thao said.