By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Two or three days a week Megan Schain drops what she’s doing at her photography studio in Newport and heads to the Lincoln County fairgrounds.
There, she dons a blue vest with a big bright nametag and begins a 4-5 hour shift walking people from a waiting area to the table where they will receive their COVID-19 vaccine.
She does her job with a contagious enthusiasm that helps put people at ease after enduring a year of restrictions and months of waiting to be inoculated.
“I like being a hostess; I was a Nordstrom girl,” Schain laughs. “But it’s a phenomenal cause and I want to be part of the movement that ends this horrible pandemic.”
Schain is just one of an army of volunteers aiding staff from Lincoln County and health care providers to so far inoculate nearly 25,000 people since December. The county is No. 1 in Oregon for getting the highest proportion of its residents inoculated.
It wouldn’t happen without more than 300 volunteers.
They direct cars into parking lots, check appointments at the front door, screen people for coronavirus symptoms, help with paperwork, and usher people to their seats – all so a volunteer nurse, doctor and paramedic can give them a shot. When that’s done, another volunteer schedules their second appointment, if needed, or monitors them for an adverse reaction afterwards.
“We just have an amazing bunch of people who have dropped almost everything to come and help,” said Sally Edwards, who was hired by Lincoln County Public Health in January to coordinate all the volunteers at the growing number of weekly clinics. “It’s amazing that something so awful has also brought us together.”
An army of volunteers
Vaccinations in Lincoln County start with the employees of the public health department, Samaritan Health Services, North Lincoln Fire & Rescue, Pacific West Ambulance, the Confederated Tribe of the Siletz, and local pharmacies.
But to get shots into arms they need a lot of help. And that’s where the volunteers come in.
The emergency services arm of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office was just starting to recruit volunteers into a new Medical Reserve Corps last spring when the coronavirus pandemic hit. That process was set aside until late fall, when the county began preparing for mass vaccinations clinics.
LCPH managers initially organized the clinics. But they quickly realized they needed more help and contracted with two people to manage details of the clinics and coordinate volunteers.
To make it work, the sheriff’s office temporarily merged its new 17-member Medical Corps with the county’s larger volunteer group. Assistant emergency services manager Samantha Buckley handles Corps volunteers for the sheriff’s office. Edwards, who organized volunteers at the Oregon Coast Aquarium until it shut last year, was hired to oversee the county’s volunteers.
Buckley said Medical Corps volunteers run the gamut of medical professionals – retired and active doctors, nurses, physicians assistants, paramedics, even a chaplain.
“They want to help; they want to give back,” said Buckley.
Edwards’ volunteers are a much broader group, drawn from a massive outpouring of people, groups and government agencies who responded when the county publicly sought help late last year.
Overall, there are 100 active or retired medical volunteers who handle the vaccines and another 230 who help with everything from parking to sign-ins at the front door to guiding people to their seats.
They offered their services individually, Edwards said, or signed up through 20 “affiliated partners” and employers such as Samaritan, the Lincoln County School District, Hatfield Marine Science Center, the aquarium and civic groups.
The county also regularly sends Edwards’ list of opportunities to its employees and so far nearly 60 have done so – either on the county’s time with the permission of their supervisor, or with the employee using vacation time or working off hours. Edwards estimates they’ve contributed more than 1,000 hours. At the first clinic in Waldport last month, for example, the check-in at the door was handled by an employee from the county treasurer’s office, while employees from the assessor’s and district attorney’s office worked the parking lot.
Edwards says she is still in the process of getting background checks completed on 80 clinical volunteers and 60 others who offered to help. If the checks come back Ok, then volunteers are assigned a job and then spend a few hours observing that task before beginning work.
“It’s a huge varied group of people who have come together to staff these clinics,” Edwards said. “I’m astounded by the generosity of people and their time.”
Nursing students pitch in
Crystal Bowman is the director of nursing at Oregon Coast Community College in Newport and signed up for the county’s Medical Reserve Corps last fall “as a way to give back.”
But when the Corps combined efforts with the county and when LCPH called for volunteers, she offered her own nursing skills — and that of the college’s 51 first- and second-year nursing students.
“I told them ‘I don’t know how we can help and when we can help … but we will’,” Bowman said.
Some 22 students, and all second-year students, have volunteered so far, aided by loosening of vaccination restrictions on nursing students by the Oregon State Board of Nursing. They helped vaccinate first responders at the first clinics in December, and now help regularly at the mass clinics at the fairgrounds in Newport.
“They’ve been a big, consistent group of vaccinators going in and helping,” Bowman said. “They were nervous at first, but they enjoy being part of something big and that it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Doctor learns to give shots
Dr. Tom Rafalski of Yachats works full time as a hospitalist at Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport. He initially got involved in the county’s Medical Reserve Corps last spring, then jumped in to volunteer on his own time this winter when the call for vaccinators went out.
“I see so many doctors and nurses I work with helping at the clinics,” Rafalski said. “We’re helping ourselves in a way. Every shot counts toward herd immunity.”
Rafalski is impressed with how organized the clinics are, allowing each person to focus on one task and let others handle their duties.
“It’s very well organized. I’ve been impressed with it,” he said. “And just six months ago there wasn’t anything.”
Rafalski’s only issue – he had to brush up on how to give shots.
“In most medical practices doctors don’t give shots, nurses do that,” he laughed. “I had to study how to give them on YouTube. Now I’m an expert.”
Phil Resnikoff is a retired physicians assistant from San Francisco who moved to Lincoln City six years ago. He’s volunteered for 5-6 shifts so far giving vaccinations.
“For a year we’ve been sitting on our thumbs. We haven’t seen anybody,” Resnikoff said of pandemic restrictions. “Now, it feels good to participate and help put this pandemic down.
“Most people in the health care field are givers,” he said. “And this is one way. It’s a good operation and we’re all glad to be there.”
