Short-staffed St. Charles hospitals getting help from Oregon National Guard

(Update: Adding video, comments by Guard members, St. Charles nurse)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- St. Charles Bend had another record number of COVID-19 patients Tuesday, reaching 68, with 14 on ventilators, as the state reached a record 1,000 hospitalizations.

That, combined with hundreds of job openings, has created a crisis. The Oregon National Guard is helping out.

Guard Specialist Bobby Stanhope is guarding the emergency entrance at the hospital. Not as security, but as a COVID screener.

"Check in patients that are coming through, ask them some qualifying questions and then send them to the direction that they would need to go," he told NewsChannel 21 on Tuesday.

Stanhope is one of 127 Oregon National Guard members deployed to help out the understaffed St. Charles Health System, among 500 statewide, which could ramp up to about 1,500 total.

"Expect the unexpected, to be honest,” he said of the job. “We've been sent to a few little things, you know -- fires, riots, you know, some of that training and stuff like that."

But nothing like working at a hospital.

Staff Sergeant Zook Gango said, "For someone like me, I don't know anything about the hospital setting. I don't anything about how stuff is run at a hospital."

But they are learning. And the Guard members’ help was badly needed.

"Honestly, they're understaffed, that's what I'm seeing. There's a big need for people, for help, for hands," Stanhope said.

St. Charles Bend Medical Department nurse manager Megan Boyle said, "It's been a huge impact, very positive impact on both the caregivers and the patients. We've really had the National Guard focus on keeping those supplies stocked."

In addition to making sure caregivers have what they need and screening, Guard members are helping with check-in, preparing and delivering food, even fit-testing masks.

"Whatever they need to do or things they need help with, I'm doing it for them," Gango said.

And while every job they're doing isn't the most glamorous, it's frees up the hospital staff.

"They don't need to be watching everything,” Stanhope said. “They've got a lot of people here working a lot of hours to try and man stations that are needed to be."

The Guard members are scheduled to be there through Sept. 30, but the ones we talked to didn't know when their deployment will end.