Summer EMS shortage hits Sumner County

The national EMS worker shortage has begun to take its toll in Sumner County, where demand for emergency services has skyrocketed over the course of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Burnout, as well as the risk of exposing themselves and their families to the virus, has driven many EMS workers to leave the profession, according to Sam Clark, assistant chief of operations for Sumner County EMS.

Local hospitals also have begun hiring EMS workers to offset nurse shortages, exacerbating the problem.

“These people are being worked like they’ve never been worked before. We’ve never faced anything like this in our careers. I’ve never seen anything like this in my 20 years,” Clark said.

Over the past four months, Sumner County EMS has experienced its highest-ever call volume since the county first started recording it in 1988. It has been documented that violent crime and trauma tend to increase across the nation during the summer months. Coupled with local spikes in pandemic-related calls for respiratory distress and mental health issues, the county’s emergency services are busier than ever, Clark said.

“Everything has just snowballed,” he said.

In order to focus on responding to 911 calls, Sumner County EMS has outsourced inter-hospital transfers to private ambulance companies. As a result, the county is not yet experiencing service delays, according to Clark.

Although the pandemic has made things much worse, EMS shortages have been an issue both locally and nationally for several years. The long hours and relatively low pay can make it difficult for ambulance services to attract workers when the economy is doing well and people have more options. As a result, most emergency service departments can’t afford to lose many workers, especially during a prolonged public health crisis.

“Health care in the state of Tennessee, and maybe in the nation, is in meltdown mode,” said Sumner County Mayor Anthony Holt.

Holt added that the best way to reduce the strain on EMS was to get vaccinated as soon as possible, and he emphasized that the Pfizer vaccine is now FDA-approved. Just more than 40% of Sumner County residents are fully vaccinated, compared to 42.1% of Tennesseans and 53.3% of Americans overall, according to CDC data.

“It’s creating a massive problem,” Holt said.

“Those who aren’t vaccinated are at much greater risk of getting seriously ill or even dying. And it’s putting a much greater strain on our frontline health care workers, our EMS workers and nurses.”

Holt also expressed frustration with the politicization of vaccination efforts.

“The culprit is COVID-19, but those who decide not to get vaccinated really give the virus an avenue to harm our community,” he said.

“One thing about COVID is that it doesn’t discriminate. It kills everybody. We have to fight back. And we will do that by being responsible.”