Volunteer rescuers take up Covid-19 fight
Emergency workers risk lives ferrying patients to hospitals, writes Dumrongkiat Mala
Ateam of five at Thailand’s largest rescue organisation, the Ruamkatanyu Foundation, carefully puts on coveralls (a one-piece suit), gloves, masks and goggles and jumps into an ambulance to rush to a nearby house after a call came in reporting an unidentified body at the residence.
“This is our lives now. It’s not very comfortable wearing full protective gear to work, but it’s necessary for our own safety as we are the ones who work on the frontlines and are at risk of contracting the virus during the pandemic,” Pholpaisan Maksap, an official at the foundation, told the Bangkok Post.
More than 65% of emergency cases in Thailand now rely on free services run by private foundations as most hospitals do not have enough rescue vehicles to meet demand. The two most well-known of these organisations are the Ruamkatanyu Foundation and the Por Teck Tung Foundation.
The staff and volunteers at these foundations try to provide basic medical care to sick people and transport them to hospitals. Their services also include collecting dead bodies and delivering them to morgues or temples.
The foundations are funded by private donations and their staff are not allowed to accept money either from hospitals or from victims and relatives.
“None of us do this for the money. We just want to help people and give something back to society. Of course, we’re scared of contracting the virus and worry about carrying infection back to our families, but if we stop working during this period, the workload may overwhelm staff at hospitals,” Mr Pholpaisan said.
To reduce rescue workers’ risk of contracting the virus, the National Institute of Emergency Medicine (Niem) recently set up a training programme to educate them on how to properly protect themselves from the disease and respond to coronavirus cases.
“We were trained on how to interact with patients suspected of having Covid-19 and how to use personal protective equipment (PPE) to shield ourselves from droplets from coughs, sneezes or other body fluids from patients that might infect us,” Mr Pholpaisan said.
According to Niem guidelines, rescue workers at private foundations are now required to ask all patients whether they have any symptoms similar to those of Covid-19 such as fever, cough, runny nose, sore throat or breathing difficulties, or have been in close contact with Covid-19-infected persons within 14 days.
If the patient is unconscious, friends, relatives or someone close to them must provide the information.
“If the patients pass the risk evaluation, the team can start providing medical assistance and deliver them to hospitals as usual. However, if they don’t, the case must be transferred to a coronavirus-response team, which is my unit now,” he said.
Mr Pholpaisan said that his foundation has recently set up two rescue teams to specifically deal with patients suspected of having Covid-19 or unidentified bodies with no history. Each team consists of five rescuers.
Members of these teams have to put on full protective gear every time they answer a call or collect a body, he said.
“Dead bodies still have fluids that might infect us, so we have to work with them slowly and carefully. Unlike normal corpses, bodies of people suspected of having Covid-19 will be wrapped in three plastic bags with another layer of a mortuary sheet and rubber sheet before handing them to forensic pathologists,” he said.
After that, corpses suspected of Covid-19 infection will be examined and tested for the virus. If the results turn out to be positive, the rescue team that collected the body will have to quarantine themselves for 14 days, Mr Pholpaisan added.
“So far, my team has responded to four suspected coronavirus cases, but luckily zero tested positive,” he said.
The Por Teck Tung Foundation, another well-known rescue organisation, also recently set up its own coronavirus-response teams.
“We now have six rescue teams and four ambulances prepared for Covid19 cases. However, none of them has yet responded to any confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases,” Somboon Kwan-uam, head of the department of disaster mitigation at the foundation, told the Bangkok Post.
Mr Somboon said that all coronavirus-response teams at his foundation were trained by both Niem and the Bamrasnaradura Infectious Diseases Institute and they are on standby around the clock.
“Apart from wearing PPE while working with Covid-19 cases, our special teams are also required to regularly clean and disinfect vehicles and equipment to ensure they are as safe as possible,” he said.
Mr Somboon said staff and volunteers who are not in special teams at his foundation have also been advised to wear protective gear while working even if the people they rescue have no symptoms of Covid-19.
“You can still have coronavirus although you don’t have a fever or other symptoms because the incubation period of the virus is 14 days. As Covid19 is a novel pathogen that is not fully understood, I think that approaching all the cases with universal precautions is the best way for us, rescue workers, to protect ourselves,” he said.
The rescuer also urged the public to strictly follow the government’s social-distancing guidelines.
‘‘ None of us do this for the money. We just want to help. PHOLPAISAN MAKSAP RESCUE VOLUNTEER