Lodi firefighters ask dispatchers to screen calls for coronavirus
Firefighters across the county are changing the way they respond to medical calls in an effort to keep themselves safe from coronavirus and not potentially spread the disease.
Lodi Fire Chief Gene Stoddart said that due to the heightened risk of being exposed to COVID-19, some calls for medical assistance related to breathing difficulty are being responded to by just one fire department employee.
If it is determined the patient does not display COVID-19 symptoms, then additional personnel will be called to a scene.
“We have a responsibility to take care of the community and respond to all emergency calls at the same level of operation that we have been providing,” Stoddart said. “But we don’t want to be the agency that transmits any communicable disease, either through our own personnel or the community members who need our assistance.”
Typically, fire crews respond to all calls — medical or fire — as a team. But with San Joaquin County Public Health Services recently confirming three positive cases of coronavirus, Stoddart said extra precautions need to be taken to make sure his department remains at full staff during the pandemic.
“We can go to someone who’s 20 years old and not showing symptoms, and then respond immediately afterward to a convalescent home, where the residents are more susceptible to the virus,” he said. “If one of our firefighters goes down or has to be quarantined, we don’t have a huge pool of firefighters to recruit in order to meet the needs of the community.”
The department’s decision to change response protocol comes after Stoddart and fire chiefs in Stockton, Manteca, Lathrop and Tracy request county dispatch services screen emergency calls from residents.
Screening calls, Stoddart said, involves asking callers if they are having respiratory problems or symptoms related to coronavirus.
Lathrop-Manteca Fire
District Chief Gene Neely said he and his counterparts in other jurisdictions requested additional questions be asked of callers after learning the Valley Regional Emergency Communication Center was screening calls for departments in Stanislaus County.
The communications center handles initial 9-1-1 calls for San Joaquin County first responders before transferring them to San Joaquin County Emergency Medical Services, Neely said.
San Joaquin County EMS has not been requesting the additional questions from VRECC, he said.
“(County EMS) stance is they want to be overly cautious and want every call to be treated as if there is a potential to encounter someone with coronavirus,” Neely said. “The problem with that is that it is going to cost additional time and resources when responding.”
Neely said his department has stocked up on N95 masks that are being recommended for use by first responders and hospital staff when treating those who test positive for coronavirus.
However, Neely said there is a possibility fire departments will run out of those supplies, depending on the duration of the pandemic.
In the event his department depletes is supply of resources like the N95, Neely said he will have to send one firefighter to a scene to assess the situation before backup personnel arrives, much like Lodi has already begun doing.
He said he was drafting a letter to be signed by other fire chiefs in the county, asking San Joaquin EMS to request additional questions be asked of dispatchers before first responders are deployed to medical calls.
Dr. Katherine Shafer, EMS Medical Director, issued a policy statement regarding the request on the agency’s website.
“As the medical director for SJCEMSA, I felt it was necessary to be proactive by exceeding the CDC recommendations in order to protect prehospital care personnel from exposure,” she said. “I accomplished this by issuing Policy Memorandum No. 2020-04, that provided medical direction assuming the existence of community transmission of COVID-19. This forward thinking proactive approach was supported by San Joaquin County Public Health Services and constituted a medical best practice.”
Neely said for the time being, he will comply with EMS recommendations to treat any medical call as one that involves a respiratory illness.
He was planning to have the letter supported by other chiefs delivered to EMS by the end of Friday.
“We’d like to be at the decision-making table so we can get the finished and transparent information to our staff and to the public,” he said. “We just want to be treated the same way as departments in another county have been assisted.”