As the pressures of the pandemic mount, we look at the police, firefighters and paramedics who help to keep us safe and healthy
The eerie silence that has befallen Canada’s most populous city has become increasingly punctuated by the sound of emergency vehicle sirens. As many hunker down at home, the demands of first responders helping to keep others and the city safe has risen tenfold. And while paramedics, firefighters and police officers signed up for a career that puts their lives at risk every time they go to work, the pandemic has driven that danger rating up to an unprecedented level.
Tasked to transport potentially ill and COVID-infected patients to hospitals; or care for them at home due to hospitals at capacity; or police the city to enforce the law, along with newly enacted COVID-related laws, first responders are facing heightened levels of stress and anxiety.
And while grateful citizens gather in many neighbourhoods across the city and province nightly banging pots and pans to show their gratitude to frontline workers, first responders can get forgotten in the mix since their job comes with an inherent level of danger.
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But we see them putting on a brave face to take care of us. And they’re doing so at a time when their calls to serve are ramped up with new daily protocols, service requirements and time demands. For this and all that they do to keep our citizens and city safe, we offer our unwavering gratitude.
“You truly can’t fully remove all the danger from the job, we always knew the hazards of what we do, but it’s only usually been us in harm’s way, not our families. This is a very different environment than anything we’ve ever faced,” said Toronto firefighter Jet Black. “We’re still eager to show up and help where we can, but the big difference now is what we could be bringing home to our loved ones as a result of not being able to isolate. The stress and anxiety come from how our jobs can impact our loved ones now.”
“And we’re certainly still being exposed like other frontline workers across the board to COVID. And just like healthcare workers are increasingly being diagnosed with COVID, we’re no different, we’re getting the emails to let us know about those in our departments who are getting sick. And that can be tough,” added Black.
Unless first responders test positive for COVID, they don’t have what some call the “luxury” of staying home to self-isolate. As a result, many are feeling the emotional impact of living apart or separating themselves from loved ones to decrease the risk of transmitting the virus to them, citing this as one of their greatest stressors with a pandemic that doesn’t have a clear end date in sight. Black has been separated from his immunocompromised wife for more than a month due to the risks of his job.
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And when first responders do go into work, they go into a rapidly changing environment with safety protocols changing daily. Everything from now being told to wear masks for all calls, even while at their place of work — something new for firefighters — to using Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) if they’re able to access supplies, to changes in executing medical calls.
The Toronto Fire Department, with 2,700 members approximately, said they’ve seen a 4.3 percent increase in calls during this time. And with paramedics being overwhelmed, due in large part to long wait times at hospitals, firefighters are taking more and more medical calls since the virus hit the city.
Toronto police are also at a greater risk of contracting COVID-19 these days as the city and province ramp up efforts to enforce new municipal physical distancing bylaws and provincial orders recently enacted to try to stop the spread of COVID-19, exposing officers to close public interactions.
Over the Easter long weekend, Toronto Police Service spokesperson Meaghan Gray said that 160 officers were dedicated to patrolling areas where police noticed that people have been not complying with bylaws and orders.
The officers have been pulled from the service’s primary response units, community response units, mounted and marine units and members of its parking enforcement unit. The officers are also working with city bylaw officers.
The Toronto Police Service employs over 5,500 officers and more than 2,200 civilian staff, making it one of the largest municipal police services in North America.
The new policing directives come as 11 Toronto Police Service members tested positive for COVID-19. Supt. Rob Johnson, unit commander of 14 Division, told the Star earlier this month that his officers had been asking a lot of questions about how they got infected. Enhanced cleaning and efforts to distance officers are being made at every opportunity, he said, adding that officers are becoming increasingly scared.
The Ontario Paramedic Association (OPA) has said that its calls have been escalating now that there is community spread of COVID and that paramedics are coming across cases where people have not followed public health directives, spreading COVID to others.
Like firefighters and police, the OPA’s 2,600 members have been working around the clock treating hundreds of other conditions concurrent with COVID, said Katherine Hambleton, the provincial chair for the OPA’s Ontario Paramedic Wellness Committee. Shifts are being extended from 12 hours to 18 hours and there are upstaffing/overtime demands since between 5-20 percent of staff are already in COVID-related isolation in urban areas, said Darryl Wilton, the President of the Ontario Paramedic Association.
“Like all first responders, COVID-19 has impacted individual paramedics in many ways,” said Hambleton. “Paramedics are first and foremost citizens like everyone else, and they struggle with the same constraints that the general population is experiencing with the changing environment due to COVID-19. Families are having to juggle childcare demands, homeschooling, lack of available healthy food options when going to the grocery store, and the emotional impact of having to be away from loved ones to reduce the spread of the virus.”
“But every paramedic in this province is prepared to do our part to get through this,” added Wilton. “That is what we do. Paramedics will adapt, improvise and overcome.”
And for this attitude and dedication to their work during an unprecedented time, and always, we’re forever grateful for first responders who put our needs before their own.
