Hundreds of Indiana National Guardsmen are currently deployed in the state’s long-term care facilities, as part of the fight against COVID-19. Staff Sgt. Maira Beltran is one of them. She had the chance to discuss her experience at the Morrison Woods Health Campus in Muncie during Governor Holcomb’s COVID-19 press conference Wednesday.
“I had never in my life, when I first enlisted, I never imagined that I would be serving in the middle of a global pandemic,” she said. “But this is what I signed up for as a guardsman, and I do it with pride. And even if it’s just a little part, it’s my part, and I’m honored to serve.”
Beltran said she’s been helping with temperature checks, sanitizing high-contact areas, and administrative tasks, if needed. That frees up staff members to focus on caring for sick patients.
One of those staff members expressed her thanks for the Guard’s help during Wednesday’s press conference. Nurse Carlee McCormic is the director of staff development and infection preventionist at Golden Living Center – Woodlands in Newburgh. “We are just trying our best to keep it out of here,” she told state officials. “I mean, the updates, the newness of everything, the things that you guys tell us on a weekly basis. You know, it’s ‘Dr. Box said –’ around here.”
Sgt. Beltran said it’s been an eye-opening experience. “I know that when you hear about health care workers and how tired they are, it’s easy to not understand it because you’re not in the moment. You’re not in the zone. You’re not living it,” she explained. “But now that we’ve been here for a few weeks, and you see how little if feels like we’re doing but how big of an effect it has, it really does put things into perspective.”
More than half of Indiana’s COVID-19 deaths have been residents of long-term care facilities.
