Staff ‘terrified’ of going to work, during pandemic, says paramedic

A PARAMEDIC with the Welsh Ambulance Service has given a candid account of his experiences on the frontline during the Covid-19 outbreak.

The experienced NHS employee, who works in south Wales, admitted that many of his colleagues are “terrified” of going into work, with many never having dealt with anything so traumatic. He said while the service was well-equipped to deal with coronavirus patients when the first few cases were being identified, it was now proving more difficult to keep the public and staff safe.

The whistleblower went on to warn that he only knew of one paramedic being tested for the life-threatening disease so far.

“There’s a lot of fear. Some colleagues are absolutely terrified of this and just don’t want to go into work,” he said.

“I never thought I would be involved in something like this. It’s absolutely exhausting working on the frontline.”

The paramedic said the majority of his call-outs were now related to Covid-19, with many patients needing the highest levels of treatment, including CPR.

He said in the most serious ‘red’ cases he is required to wear a full white suit, as well as goggles, a mask, apron and gloves.

“When the elderly, in particular, are told that they have got coronavirus, you can see the fear in their faces,” he admitted. “A lot of the patients with the virus have a similar look – it’s hard to explain it.”

Ambulance crews, along with pandemic teams, were having to make very difficult decisions about who they took to hospital and who they told to stay at home, he added. He feared that vulnerable patients with severe underlying health problems could be “wiped out” by this virus.

The paramedic said carrying out CPR in full PPE gear was a difficult task.

“The suits are absolutely boiling and when you’re carrying out CPR and the sun is coming into the room it’s off the scale,” he said.

“We need to work in pairs as we can’t put all the equipment on ourselves. Most solo working has had to stop.”

He said that after treating every Covid-19 patient the ambulance needs to be thoroughly cleaned, which can take up to an hour.

“This is destroying us,” he said. “We need to mop the floor and wipe down the surfaces after every patient. I’ve seen colleagues’ hands completely raw and cracked from all the cleaning.”

Another aspect of the job which he claims is having a detrimental effect on staff morale is a lack of leadership.

“A lot of local managers are being moved around and we feel there’s no station leadership. That point of contact has disappeared,” he said. “The poor supervisors are being left to pick up the pieces.”

In response to the paramedic’s claims Welsh Ambulance Service chief executive Jason Killens said the trust was doing “as much as possible” to communicate with all staff.

“I had an hour-long video session with 1,000 of our staff and we are now doing this every week,” he said.

Mr Killens concluded: “This a completely unprecedented issue and there’s no playbook we can turn to where this has happened before. If any staff are frightened they need to talk to us.”