Whether there is a pandemic or not, people still need emergency services.
Tracy Dietrich, program coordinator of the Emergency Telecommunications program at Fanshawe College, highlighted how COVID-19 has impacted the industry and her program.
“Dealing with the pandemic on top of your regular day to day calls is much more hectic. And I think, particularly for EMS, they notice a shift when lockdowns occur and vaccination clinics close,” she said.
Working in a 911 call centre is already stressful for the people who answer the phones but COVID has only increased that stress.
Also, they are seeing a shift in the number and types of calls coming in which “flows with what’s happening out in the world.” By this Dietrich means that when the case counts are up, and outbreaks are occurring then there are fewer calls for less emergent assistance. This is “because people are less willing to go to a hospital and sit there for several hours,” she pointed out.
But due to the pandemic, she said that “there has been increase in mental health calls from the general public. Just because you know isolation and lockdown can be wearing on people personally as well especially if they’re living alone or in a tenuous situation that’s not safe for them on a good day.”
As a professor at Fanshawe College, she also experiences how the pandemic is impacting her program and students. She talked about how the hours of the labs are reduced, the number of students in each section had to be reduced, internships are not really possible right now, and that the teaching method changed.
As she said, the way things are now allow for more one on one but it makes it difficult to “simulate the noisy environment and the chaos of the centre because you just don’t have the bodies to do it.”
Comments