As COVID-19 cases continued to rise in Douglas County, first responders had to work double time to help the community and keep us safe. But, how has the pandemic affected them? I went to Umpqua Valley Ambulances in order to interview a few paramedics to get their insight on what is going on in the healthcare community.
In an interview with Pillip Reed, when asked about what the biggest change is going from no pandemic, to a global one, he stated, “We are getting more calls, the severity of them are increasing because, what I’ve noticed, is that people are waiting longer because of the concern…not necessarily of them being sick, but having to go to the hospital and exposing other people, or being exposed themselves.” Reed goes on to state that those who wait longer, get sicker, and then they call. He states that they are, “…running more constantly since before the pandemic.” This is risky behavior seeing as how this could lead to exposing more people, therefore causing it to spread even more.
After asking how the decrease in healthcare workers has affected Umpqua Valley Ambulances, Reed stated, “We didn’t see a huge exodus of people. I think most people in this field know what the risks are, we also know how to take care of ourselves and protect ourselves…We didn’t see a big exodus for that reason.” Although the workers have not left due to the fear of COVID, they have left for other reasons, Reed goes on to say, “We have seen folks leave…we had a few here and there who didn’t want the vaccine for their own reasons and they chose to leave, but it wasn’t an overwhelming number.” After talking with Reed, I was pleased to hear that the pandemic had not affected them as badly as I was first thinking.
Later on, I talked with Tom Krowkowski to get another view on the topic. When asked about what the differences were between an average work day pre-pandemic vs. mid-pandemic, Krowkowski responded with, “Besides just cleaning the ambulance between every patient, whenever we have any kind of respiratory patient, we have to do a full disinfection, which requires leaving the chemicals in there for ten minutes before wiping everything down.” He states that this adds quite a bit of time to their routine. Krowkowski addresses wearing masks and what that means for their workplace, “We are wearing masks at all times on calls, on all types of calls…It is like what HIV and AIDS did to paramedics back in the day. We didn’t wear gloves ever, and now all of a sudden, everyone wears gloves on every call.
I went on to ask him how he viewed those who left due to COVID. “The vaccine mandates, we have lost a total of six people…Four of them are just waiting for the law to change and are on leave without pay, and two of them moved to Texas. Two full time paramedics, four part-timers…It hasn’t been a super critical hit for us.” This is a relief to hear. The fact that our first responders are not as short-staffed as we thought they were is a very good thing.
After spending some time with the paramedics and EMTs of our community, I was impressed with how they are able to handle the injuries and problems of their patients that they may not even know. Even with the pandemic, they have kept up professionalism. We can feel a bit safer knowing that these people are some of the first ones to the rescue.