Consider 400 Minnesota National Guard Assigned To Senior Centers.

The headline is as follows...

Minnesota National Guard to reinforce nursing home staffs.

AP News reports that hundreds of Minnesota National Guard are being dispersed to assisted living centers across the state to assist the depleted assisted living staffers. I don't know all the logistics...I can only tell you what I read from the AP here...

The 400 Guard members will start training as certified nursing assistants and as temporary nursing aides over the next week, the governor’s office said. Selected facilities will receive Guard teams for up to three weeks at a time.

I'm just jumping myself into the heads of some of those folks in the Guard. They're so passionate and excel in their trained fields and now have to train not just in nursing, but in patience.

The reinforcements from the Guard follow the governor’s announcement last week that the Department of Defense will send medical teams to two major Minnesota hospitals to relieve doctors and nurses who are swamped by the growing wave of COVID-19 patients.

So if it's the Minnesota Guard or the North Dakota Guard being called, I no doubt have faith in their ability to complete their mission with compassion and professionalism

I just wonder what they're getting into...

This is all just personal experience, having in my time, spent a good share of time visiting assisted living centers, swing beds, ICUs. nursing homes, rehab centers, and just being around old people in general.

Some old people are very difficult to deal with...

Old people are my very favorite people because I keep getting older just like them.  But goodness sakes, they're always in incredible pain, always in an unfamiliar place, and straight-up...it always seems to make some of them grumpy.

Hail The Assisted Care Workers!

Y'all do the greatest work in the world dealing with people that in my silly way of thinking are "old enough to know better".  Many are suffering from maladies that will never find them in their right minds again.

So patience is going to need to be a virtue that the Guard members will want to reconnect with.  I'm sure they will, but what an unusual journey it's gonna be.

Hail The National Guard!