National Guard to depart from Aultman, Mercy hospitals

Sam Zern, The Repository
·3 min read
Ohio National Guard members deployed to Cleveland Clinic Mercy Hospital and Aultman Hospital during the 2021-22 winter surge of COVID-19 will leave the hospitals in the coming days as the surge shifts to other parts of the state.
Ohio National Guard members deployed to Cleveland Clinic Mercy Hospital and Aultman Hospital during the 2021-22 winter surge of COVID-19 will leave the hospitals in the coming days as the surge shifts to other parts of the state.

CANTON – After a little more than a month of helping fill clinical and support staff, members of the Ohio National Guard working at Aultman Hospital and Cleveland Clinic Mercy Hospital will soon return to their civilian duties or head to harder hit parts of the state.

Stephanie Beougher, spokesperson with the Ohio National Guard Office of Public Affairs, said that the 30 Guard members supporting Aultman Hospital were scheduled to provide support through the end of Friday, and the Mercy Guard team were scheduled to go from 10 clinical and 40 general support staff to 10 clinical and 10 general support on Saturday.

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"We remain extremely grateful for the tremendous support and help they provided during the recent COVID surge," Aultman Hospital said in a statement

The remaining Guard members at Mercy are expected to stay through Feb. 11, though that may change depending on state needs assessments made by the Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Hospital Association.

"On behalf of all Cleveland Clinic Mercy Hospital caregivers, I would like to offer heartfelt thanks and appreciation to the members of the Ohio National Guard who have been actively deployed at Mercy," Cleveland Clinic Mercy Hospital President Dr. Tim Crone said. "These servicemen and women provided invaluable support during the recent COVID-19 surge, especially while a number of our caregivers were also out sick. We thank them for their hard work, compassion and dedication."

The National Guard first arrived in Canton in late December when the winter COVID-19 surge was hitting Northeast Ohio.

Members were brought in to help in medical duties and support roles, like cleaning, transportation and food services to help ease the workload in the at-capacity hospitals.

Members of the National Guard also ran a COVID-19 test site in Stark County in January to help further ease some of the burden on health systems overwhelmed with requests for COVID-19 tests. That test site closed last week after demand fell and hospital officials said their emergency room wait times decreased.

OHA Director of Media and Public Relations John Palmer said the move is an "encouraging development" in surge planning efforts in the state as clinical Guard members will move to help other regions in Ohio.

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According to the Ohio Hospital Association dashboard, hospitalizations in the region that includes Stark and Summit counties, as well as some surrounding areas, are down in recent weeks. Currently, there are 755 people hospitalized with COVID-19, a 43% decrease from two weeks ago.

Case counts remain high, particularly as the faster-spreading omicron variant of COVID-19 has taken over as the dominant strain. The public is encouraged to wear masks, social distance, maintain personal hygiene and get tested as appropriate.

"We continue to encourage everyone who is eligible to get the vaccine and booster when appropriate to help protect themselves, their loved ones and their community against current and future COVID variants," the statement from Aultman said.

Sam Zern can be reached at szern@cantonrep.com or 330-580-8322. You can also find her on Twitter at @sam_zern.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: As pandemic surge shifts, Ohio National Guard leaves Stark hospitals