Photo By Joseph Vigil | Sgt. Amanda Montoya, the New Mexico National Guard team trident noncommissioned...... read more read more
When COVID -19 vaccine began rolling out across the nation at the end of 2020, Sgt. Amanda Montoya with the New Mexico National Guard’s Medical Detachment was assigned the task to put the plan together and lead the charge to get NMNG Soldiers and Airmen, Tricare beneficiaries, Department of Defense personnel and qualified veterans vaccinated.
Since January 4, 2021, the vaccine team has successfully put ‘shots in arms’ of over 7,500 qualified personnel.
“We started this with just two other people in my shop,” said Montoya who works with state medical logistics for the office of the state surgeon. “This came into my lane as part of the immunization portion of the mission which encompasses planning for the scheduling portion,
the ordering of the vaccine, the makeup of all the paperwork and how we are going to disseminate that and make the clinic flow.”
As the non-commissioned officer in charge on this mission, Montoya also takes care of Soldiers – making sure their pay is good, they are getting meals and helping them resolve any issues they may have.
“It’s all part of being a good NCO,” said Montoya. “It’s important to also be communicating with my leadership to make sure they know where we stand on the mission.”
Montoya said it has been a very busy mission since they received their first doses on December 30th. She did the planning for the most part and worked to get people trained and qualified to give vaccines. Her current staff consists of six administrators, four medics, one provider and she is still looking for assistance.
“The mission has gone smoothly although we were a little nervous at the beginning,” said Montoya. “The mission is ever-changing, so our two key words keeping us resilient have been ‘flexibility and dedication’ as we work through CDC guideline changes as well as those coming through National Guard Bureau. Our entire team must be communicating on the same page to make sure we are all tracking those changes.”
As far as getting the word out to potentially qualified shot candidates, Montoya used her personal experience of utilizing the Square Up application when she went to get her eyelashes done.
“It was a real easy process using this app to make my appointment, reschedule it if I needed to and it was really convenient,” said Montoya. “When I started game planning how we were going to get people here, it just popped in my head so I reached out to see if this was feasible to use here. We put out the app with the link, sent out the QR code, sent an email to both NMNG Army and Air Guard staffs and made that our baby.”
With the app, vaccinations have now grown to Tricare beneficiaries, DoD personnel and veterans and it gives the vaccine team the ability to monitor and approve only those who qualify.
Montoya said the team goal remains the same as far as meeting NGB’s intent to vaccinate all our Guard personnel, DOD personnel, Tricare beneficiaries and eligible veterans. At the same time it helps New Mexico get back to green, gets kids back to school, opens up our economy and moves us closer to normalcy.
Along with the vaccine mission tempo being fast and furious, Montoya also has her hands full managing her household of five children while her husband, Staff Sgt. Robert Chavez, is deployed overseas.
“I have four energetic boys ages 15, 3 and 1 year old twins that also keep me very busy and a 13-year-old daughter, Cyara, that helps me keep them in line,” said Montoya. “She also understands how my military job works since she experienced me deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq and she is a huge help around the house.”
Montoya, a 16-year veteran of the NMMG and a certified pharmacy technician, said her love for the medical field is what keeps her motivated.
“I joined the New Mexico National Guard as a junior in high school because I wanted to travel, serve my country and do something in the medical field,” said Montoya. “To this day, I have never lost the original drive of why I joined.”
Montoya said she also wanted to fly so she joined aviation as an aviation operation specialist which she describes as an air ambulance dispatcher, but encompasses other things like maintaining flight records, medical fitness records to make sure they are fit to fly and receiving missions which she describes as a highly intense position.
“I loved my job and the adrenaline it provided,” said Montoya. “It was everything I could ask for since helping people was a big part of what I wanted to do and that unit gave me that.”
Montoya, who was part of the unit for many years, understood it was a small unit with a limited chance to get promoted so she had to choose family and career goals and chose to transfer to the Medical Detachment.
She has come a long way since that day when she begged her parents to sign the paperwork for her to join the NMNG as a high school junior despite her mom not wanting her to do so.
“She wasn’t happy with me at first or when I deployed twice, but they are very proud and now Mom congratulates me for almost being retired at the age of 36,” said Montoya.
While Montoya continues to focus on accomplishing the vaccine mission and being there for her family, she also looks forward to getting back to normal where she plans to complete her goals in the Medical Detachment of establishing a medical calibration program that will save the NNNG money and continue improving training programs for our 68 whiskey medics.
“The Guard has been a journey which has provided me incredible experience that you can’t get anywhere else,” said Montoya.
| Date Taken: | 04.14.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 04.15.2021 13:48 |
| Story ID: | 393938 |
| Location: | ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, US |
| Web Views: | 152 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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