LEBANON — The surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations is leading to a troubling secondary trend: a surge in calls to first responders.
Emergency medical services are experiencing a spike in 911 calls – and a demand on resources and equipment – as a result of the spread of COVID-19 variants, taxing personnel and resources in the final weeks of what has been already a stressful year for many responders, Upper Valley EMS services report.
“We’re on track to have one of our busiest years in the last 20,” said Lebanon Fire Chief Chris Christopoulos.
EMS calls to the Lebanon Fire Department in 2021 are running 5% higher than in 2020 – which dipped slightly from 2019 because of the spring and summer economic shutdown that kept people at home – and are on track to hit or exceed 2,700 for the year, according to Christopoulos.
Calls for EMS are coming in at the rate of 10 to 12 per day of which “at least eight to 10 are COVID,” the Lebanon chief estimated. The increase has been especially noticeable in the past month as the delta variant spread and now emergency responders are bracing for another wave due to the omicron variant.
“I don’t see this trending downward anytime soon,” Christopoulos said.
Across the river in Hartford, the fire department is also experiencing a higher volume in people calling 911.
Deputy Chief Jason Czora didn’t have a breakdown between EMS calls and fire calls but said that overall volume this year is up 200 calls, or 13%, from 2020.
“We hit last year’s total number on Dec. 1,” he said.
Although Hartford EMS has had to respond to only 13 calls where the call involved a confirmed case of COVID-19, “five of those have been since Nov. 1,” Czora said.
Czora attributes the double-digit rise in 911 calls in Hartford to the influx of people relocating to the Upper Valley to reduce the risk of exposure during the pandemic.
But every ambulance ride involving a confirmed or even suspected COVID-19 infected individual is a drag on EMS resources, he explained.
That’s because each time an ambulance transporting a COVID-19 patient returns to the station department, staff must disinfect it, a process that takes up to an hour and during which the vehicle is out of service and not available to respond to another call.
The department has three ambulances but if the second is already dispatched on a call that leaves little room for any additional glitches, such as recently happened.
“Last week we had to transport a COVID-19 positive person and our third ambulance was broken down,” Czora related, as the part needed was not available because of “supply chain issues.”
“So we had to rely on Lebanon to handle the call,” he said.
Lebanon’s Christopoulos said turn-around times during the decontamination procedure is not the only factor holding back response times. So is the COVID-19 caseload in the emergency room, which causes down-the-line backups.
Typically a turn-around time between arrival and departure at the ER is five to 10 minutes. But with all the beds filled in emergency rooms, the patient being transported must remain in the ambulance until a bed in the ER opens up, Christopoulos said.
“We are seeing bumps up to 20 minutes and even 30 minutes until a bed opens up in the ER. The ambulance is out of service until we can move the patient appropriately to the ER. It has a ripple effect. More times lately we are running three ambulances,” he said.
“We’re staffing our third ambulance a lot more than we ever have in the past,” the police chief said.
Then there is the problem of simple physics: an ambulance cannot be in two different places at the same time.
Canaan Fire Chief Bill Bellion, who is also an EMT, said that he expects ambulance calls to increase about 100 this year to 500, of which he estimates between 25 to 30% of the increase is attributable to COVID-19 patients.
The department can handle that, he said, but timing can challenge resources and responders.
“We’ll be out on a fire call when a second (EMS) call will come in. That’s happened about 10 times this year,” Bellion said. “And that’s what really hurts us.”
Canaan Ambulance, which has one full-time EMT employee but otherwise relies upon 12 regular members to respond to calls, will be adding a second full-time EMT in January.
“Even so we will still be relying upon our on-call people to cover 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.,” said Bellion, noting that volunteers are paid a $6 per hour stipend because “we have to give them something in recognition of the time and commitments they are making.”
At Golden Cross Ambulance in Claremont, owner Dale Girard said they are seeing an increase of nearly 4 calls per day for the 13 communities they serve in Sullivan County. Since October, call volume has surged 33%, about half in the COVID-19 hot spot of Claremont alone.
The required disinfecting protocols is also taking a toll on ambulance equipment. Girard said he’s noticed that the chlorine-like wash they spray the vehicle interiors with is having a corrosive effect on materials.
“We just noticed it recently,” he said. “It’s eating plastic.”
Not all Upper Valley towns are experiencing a higher volume of ambulance calls related to COVID-19, however. Hanover Fire Chief Martin McMillan said his department’s annual tally of about 911 calls for both fire and ambulance is down this year, which he thinks is directly related to the pandemic-related absence of many Dartmouth students for much of the year.
“A lot of our business is driven by population and when your single biggest population is college kids who have left we have not seen a really big push in COVID-19,” he said.
McMillan pointed out that the delta variant also began to “break loose” in the Upper Valley after Dartmouth students left for their extended winter break at Thanksgiving.
“We’ve been very fortunate in that regard,” he said, adding that he realizes that could be fleeting and may well change once students return to campus next month. “I’m holding my breath.”
Contact John Lippman at [email protected].
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Originally Appeared Here