Omicron Adds to 911 Center Staffing Challenge
The omicron variant is the latest test for already stretched-thin 911 centers managing with the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency call officials told us last week. Public safety answering point (PSAP) professionals said staff taking sick leave is the main challenge. PSAPs are more prepared than they were at the beginning of the pandemic but are also experiencing higher-than-normal staffing issues amid a national trend of workers quitting jobs in the “Great Resignation,” said National Emergency Number Association (NENA) 911 and PSAP Operations Director April Heinze in an interview.
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Staffing challenges at 911 centers predate omicron and even COVID-19, but “it’s worse now,” said Heinze. The profession faces similar workforce struggles as others do now, and it was already a difficult, in-person job requiring extensive on-the-job training, said Heinze. As COVID-19 spread, many people close to retirement “went ahead and retired,” while others “simply said, ‘I can’t do this. I can’t be away from my family.’” Some PSAPs started bringing back retirees or hiring new people for part-time roles that weren’t previously offered, she said.
Many 911 centers are using mandatory overtime to cover shifts and bringing back safety precautions including putting plexiglass back up and closing buildings to the public, emailed Harriet Rennie-Brown, National Association of State 911 Administrators executive director. "While a number of them are seeing the same uptick in absences as the rest of the workforce, they are able to manage the impact and are keeping their 911 centers staffed." The CDC's recent change reducing recommended quarantine to five days from 10 "has really helped," Rennie-Brown added.
Nearly a third of emergency medical service staffers are on medical leave at the Fire Department of New York, which is the highest absentee rate it has been during the pandemic, said Deputy Commissioner Frank Dwyer. That includes staff sick with COVID-19, those with unconfirmed COVID-19 symptoms and workers out sick for other reasons. In March and April 2020, FDNY had about 25% on medical leave, he emailed. “All firehouses and EMS Stations are open and FDNY is responding to all calls for help.” The department is adding emergency medical technicians from its EMS academy and using mandatory overtime to fill gaps, he said.
FDNY is getting “a few hundred extra calls per day,” but call volume isn’t “at the record numbers experienced during the start of the pandemic,” said Dwyer, estimating the daily call number is in the mid-4,000s. Calls reached a daily high of about 6,500 in spring 2020 (see 2004130032). Some call 911 asking to be tested or to be taken to the hospital to get a test, but the department doesn’t do testing and transporting people to the hospital for tests isn’t “the best or most efficient use of resources,” he said. FDNY issued a Dec. 31 policy directive on declining transport for many stable flu patients during the omicron surge.
Omicron's impact is “profound” at the 911 center in Cobb County, Georgia, said Emergency Communications Director Melissa Alterio. “While we are not seeing a significant call volume increase, we are experiencing a major surge in employee-related Covid positive cases,” emailed the 911 official, who said she was home recovering from COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated. The case number is close to an all-time high since the pandemic began, which is “a challenging issue in an already existing staffing crisis,” she said. The center has had to reduce lunch breaks, consolidate radios and rotate administrative staff through the center for coverage, she said. “We are monitoring this situation closely and our employees are doing their best to stay encouraged.”
Many PSAPs haven’t “recovered from COVID-19, so having the Omicron variant thrown at us has really stretched us to the limits,” emailed Maureen Will, emergency communications center director in Newtown, Connecticut. Will works with nine others in her PSAP; about seven have taken time off due to COVID-19 or possible exposure, and usually two have been out at any one time, she said: The center was already short two people, she said, and hiring has been challenging, with many fewer people applying for jobs than pre-pandemic, she said. The center was forced to implement 12-hour shifts, and 16-hours shifts have happened, she said: The director sometimes takes calls herself during overnight shifts when only one other person is available. “In a small PSAP it can be brutal -- it's not like we can pull people in off the street or close down or reroute calls.”
“COVID-19 continues to impact 911 and public safety with increased call volumes and workloads," emailed Ken Stewart, 911 communications director at the Tulsa Regional Emergency Communications Center. "The 911 public safety workforce continues to practice and implement precautions ... Strategic staffing, isolation, and facility upgrades to provide the safest possible working environment are paramount to continued service delivery.”
Heinze hasn't heard of many PSAPs requiring vaccination, but most have mask mandates, increased cleaning and provided social-distancing barriers, the NENA official said. The 911 profession was one of the last groups of essential workers to get personal protective equipment, but now it’s more prevalent, she said. “Nobody was really prepared for a true pandemic” when it began in early 2020, but since then, PSAPs “have put a lot of protocols in place in order to be able to manage things relatively well.”