Guard sends additional support to Brighton facility

After further assessing the needs at a Beaver County nursing home battling the state’s worst COVID-19 outbreak, the Pennsylvania National Guard sent 12 additional members and one more non-commissioned officer to help the facility on Wednesday.

“This was not always the plan” to add the dozen members, said Capt. David Boyles, spokesman for the Guard’s mission at Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center. “Due to an assessment and continuing the mission, we want to serve residents to the best of our ability. We saw that effort required additional service members.”

The additional members bring to 40 the number of Guard medical support team members helping provide assistance to residents in the building since they arrived on the scene Monday for what will be at least a one-week deployment to Brighton.

Another 11 members of the Guard’s civil support team, deployed there Monday to help train staff on special cleaning protocols using Guard equipment, including an atomizer, ended their mission on Wednesday, Mr. Boyles said.

The team worked with and trained a contracted cleaning service, Health Care Services Inc., and Brighton’s director of environmental services, Ed Mejia, to properly sterilize the building.

“We are extremely happy to have the National Guard’s assistance, and welcome the extra help,” Mr. Mejia said in the Guard’s Wednesday news release.

Even though they ended their work Wednesday, the 11 civil support team members “will still be in the area if we need them,” he said.

Among the 40-member team working in the building to help residents directly, 12 of them are medically trained, including several medics who can

provide care to the residents.

“We continue to stay informed on the situation at the Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center to ensure we are providing all the necessary support, appropriate supplies, and equipment required to assist the resident care and facility management,” said Lt. Col. Gary Zembower, the Pennsylvania Task Force West commander in a news release Wednesday.

“We are responding to the effort with an additional 12 soldiers to better serve the needs of the facility as they continue working towards focused resident care in a timely, cooperative effort.”

The other 27 members are helping with support services, including cleaning and other tasks in the building.

The new non-commissioned officer will help with administrative duties outside the building.

After initially planning to have the support team work in three eight-hour shifts, the guard switched that to two 12-hour shifts per day, after consulting with Brighton’s management about what would help them the most.

“That will give us over 100 additional man-hours of support in the building,” Mr. Boyles said.

That means Guard members will be working about four more hours a day.

“It does. But we’re prepared for that,” Mr. Boyles said. “We know our strengths and capabilities.”

Though the mission was planned for just a week, it could go longer, he said.

“We’re still going to stay in the fight until the mission is complete,” he said.