New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) last week more than doubled the number of deployed National Guard medical teams to aid nursing homes in the Empire State facing staffing shortages amid surging COVID-19 infections.
Hochul originally ordered on Dec. 1 the deployment of 60 National Guard medical teams to various skilled nursing facility locations across the state. By Dec. 9, the New York National Guard stated that it had deployed 120 Army medics and Air Force medical technicians to 12 long-term care facilities across the state to ease staffing shortages.
Service members now will be deployed to facilities in Syracuse, Rochester, Albany, Buffalo, Utica, Plattsburgh, Uniondale, Liberty, Vestal, Olean, Lyons and Goshen.
Planners sought trained medics or medical technicians who were not also working in the healthcare field in their civilian lives, according to Brig. Gen. Isabel Rivera Smith, the director of joint operations for the New York National Guard. “It makes no sense to take a young woman who is an Air Force med tech and works at a hospital out of that job, only to place her in another healthcare facility,” she said.
Before their latest mission, the New York National Guard was stationed at 13 vaccination and six logistics sites and assembling COVID-19 test kits, according to a National Guard statement.
