Photo By Staff Sgt. Matthew Gunther | Schenectady County Legislator Gary Hughes thanks New York Army National Guard Sgt....... read more read more
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GLENVILLE, New York – Schenectady County legislators honored New York National Guard Soldiers and New York Guard volunteers deployed to assist the Schenectady Glendale Home Friday, March 25, 2022.
County legislators Michelle Ostrelich and Gary Hughes met with the five personnel serving on active-duty orders since December 2021 to bolster the workforce of the nursing home.
New York Guard Sgts. Stephan Hershenfeld and Shreeganesh Meade, along with Sgt. Olivia Mannetti, Sgt. Michael Shaw and Spc. Charles Burton of the New York Army National Guard were honored at a small ceremony held at the Glendale Home.
Staff Sgt. Felix Cruz and Spc. Keegan Holt were also honored but could not attend the ceremony.
Ostrelich, who chairs the county’s health, housing and human services committee, presented an official proclamation to the Soldiers, thanking them for the assistance they provided.
They are among 485 National Guard Soldiers and Airmen on duty at 87 nursing homes to help ease staffing shortages.
“We really needed the help, and the Soldiers came at just the right time,” Ostrelich said. “Our appreciation for their efforts cannot be overstated.”
Glendale Home is a 200-bed facility that offers short term rehabilitation and long-term care, and like many such facilities, the COVID-19 Omicron variant surge offered a new set of challenges.
The Guard members are part of a mission that kicked off at the beginning of December 2021 at the direction of new York Governor Kathy Hochul.
A surge in COVID-19 cases threatened to overload hospitals. But a shortage of nursing facility staff meant older patients could not be moved from hospitals to nursing homes.
The goal, the governor explained at the time, was to relieve staffing shortages in nursing facilities so that patients in hospitals could move into those facilities and, in turn, free up hospital beds.
At the governor’s direction, the New York National Guard initially identified 120 Army Guard medics and Air Guard medical technicians who could go on duty in nursing homes to help with patient care and free up staff.
The Soldiers said they were eager to take some of the workload off the staff.
Manneti, a combat medic assigned to 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry Regiment, just came back from a deployment to Iraq, and was grateful for the learning experience.
“Our job as medics is normally focused on battlefield medicine,” Mannetti said. “This assignment was more about long term care, which is a very different field. I enjoyed the challenge, and the skills I learned along the way will likely come in handy down the road.”
Hershenfield, who’s full-time job is a hazmat paramedic with the New York City Fire Department, also appreciated learning a new aspect of healthcare.
“Geriatric care is something I wasn’t very familiar with, and it’s something that can be hard to fully understand unless you actually do it,” Hershenfield said. “There will no doubt be situations where what I learned here will come in handy for my day job.”
The troops are expected to remain on duty supporting the facility until May.
| Date Taken: | 03.25.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 03.29.2022 16:11 |
| Story ID: | 417414 |
| Location: | SCHENECTADY, NEW YORK, US |
| Web Views: | 376 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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