Have A Cup Of Joe With Joe: A Special Tribute To Essex-Windsor EMS

Essex-Windsor EMS . . . One Vital Regiment Of Our Frontline Warriors

By Joe McParland

Chief Bruce Krauter of Essex-Windsor EMS stands at the ready as Shawn Arrand, Paramedic/Vulnerable Patient Navigator (shown in the background) is just moments away from going on call! Photo by Rod Denis.

On a frigid and blustery mid-February afternoon, I had a ZOOM “Cup of Joe” chat with Bruce Krauter, Chief of

Essex-Windsor Emergency Medical

Services (EMS).

We discussed what the past 12 months has been like for his workforce dealing with COVID-19.

Krauter, a Windsor native and now a Leamington resident, began his career in paramedicine with Windsor Provincial Ambulance in 1983 and has worked his way through the ranks before being appointed Chief of Essex-Windsor EMS in July 2014.

He oversees our ambulance service and pre-hospital emergency medical care to nearly 400,000 residents of Essex County, Windsor and Pelee Island, providing 24/7 coverage, 365 days of the year.

In addition to a management cadre, administration, and support staff, he employs close to 300 college-trained women and men as paramedics. They work out of 12 stations throughout Windsor and Essex County (and Pelee Island) travelling each year more than 2,250,000 km in an 1,852 square kilometre area. This works out to about 404,000 on-road paramedic hours.

After assuring me he was not around for the Spanish Flu 1918 influenza pandemic, Krauter admits he is no stranger to epidemics.

Since the year 2000 he has worked through Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV-1) in 2003; the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2013 and the Ebola Virus Disease in 2014.

However, he is quick to add, “None of them compared to COVID-19 because these three epidemics were all localized and had almost no effect in the Windsor and Essex region. SARS, for example, primarily affected the GTA.”

At the time of writing this article (mid-February) only eight paramedics in his workforce have tested positive for COVID-19, since it appeared in our area. None of the cases have been occupational. Through no fault of their own, the eight were victims of community spread, as so many other innocent victims in the community have been. They all have recovered and are healthy and have returned to the workforce.

Krauter proudly states, “The fact that there has been no occupational related transmission of COVID-19 to our staff speaks highly of the tools they have been provided — the masks, the PPE (Personal Protection Equipment), training and instruction, supervision, but most importantly to the staff’s dedication to putting on that PPE for every call on every shift and ensuring deep cleaning of their equipment and vehicle after every call so they are then available to respond to further calls.”

Additionally, there has been no evidence of any patient infection related to the transmission of the virus by staff, EMS equipment, or transport vehicles.

This is truly remarkable for a global virus known for its transmissibility.

The frontline paramedics’ PPE consists of different layers depending on the nature of the call they are responding to.

For the run of the mill call their PPE is surgical masks and eye protection.

A second layer of PPE is worn if COVID-19 infection is suspected, in which case the paramedics wear goggles or glasses and a gown, and a P100 mask — a form-fitted hard rubber mask with filters on the side, which filters out 99.95 % of particulate matter.

Finally, for resuscitative calls, where procedures will produce aerosolized droplets, they wear a full Tyvek Protective Suit, complete with gloves and goggles — like HazMat suits.

When paramedics arrive with patients at Windsor Regional Hospital Ouellette and Met campuses, or at Erie Shores HealthCare in Leamington, there are 75-foot trailers on the property rented by Essex-Windsor EMS for their doffing (removal of PPE) and donning (putting on PPE) protocols.

It is interesting to note that several non-medical staff members have been hired in the past year, by Essex-Windsor EMS, to assist the paramedics with their doffing procedures. This includes the disposal of their PPE, the deep cleaning of the equipment and vehicles with ionized sprayers to disinfect all surfaces.

As Krauter expresses: “These Doffing Assistants are doing a fantastic job.”

Assisting paramedics with the daily stress and traumas of occupational events, is the EMS Peer Support Team, which has rendered enormous benefit to their workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Essex-Windsor EMS website (CountyOfEssex.ca/en/emergencyservices/ambulance-and-paramedics.aspx),

“The program was launched in 2015 when about 10 paramedics volunteered for a four day training program led by Psychologist Dr. Lori Gray, who still provides support to the team. The program got a boost in 2017 when the Bell ‘Let’s Talk Community Fund’ grant donated $20,000. The team has grown to 21 trained volunteers and is looking to expand again.”

Krauter has been a big proponent and booster of this program.

Frontline Resilience (see website: FrontlineResilience.ca) is the external provider that trained the paramedic peer volunteers. They now handle several calls per month from their colleagues and offer support and guidance to paramedics struggling with occupational stress and trauma.

In June 2020, during the extended lockdown, causal “check in” calls began to be placed monthly by team members to their colleagues. This gave way to organic ZOOM night sessions and other platforms where paramedics could talk openly and honestly about dealing with COVID-19.

Krauter identifies one of the most persistent and difficult stressors paramedics face — the bogus claims circulated on social media platforms that this virus is a made-up farce and not real.

Then paramedics observed persons protesting the wearing of masks, or callously violating health guidelines and restrictions. All this happening while death and serious illness stare the paramedics squarely in the face, each day.

During the past 12 months, paramedics test swabbed more than 15,000 residents in long term care facilities, as well as at 12 external testing sites like the Silver City parking lot on Walker Road — and continue to do so. They assist in testing at the Isolation Centre for Agri Food Workers, as well as at facilities like The Downtown Mission of Windsor where so many vulnerable people need assistance. And Krauter, as part of the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit Vaccination Task Force, has his workforce available and at the ready for administering vaccinations as they become available.

Calls for EMS service fell from 64,500 in 2019 to 60,600 in 2020. The lockdowns and restrictions likely account for the decrease of service requests.

While opioid overdose calls decreased early in the pandemic, possibly due to the restricting of prescriptions to 30 days, they have since spiked upwards in response to COVID-19 fatigue, isolation, and other associated mental health issues, which also continue to rise.

On behalf of Biz X magazine and all our readers, I want to thank and congratulate Chief Krauter and everyone at Essex-Windsor EMS for their professional and selfless dedication to our community.

I am concluding my column now by allowing Chief Krauter to directly address his workforce . . .

“I could not be prouder of our entire EMS staff — paramedics, management, administration and support staff — in terms of how they have stepped up to the plate and responded to COVID-19 from March 2020 up to the present time. I'm beyond words to say how proud I am of how the entire workforce has been an important piece in this puzzle of responding to the COVID-19 experience. I have never experienced a situation like this that has lasted this long — and likely will continue for another year or more — before we get back to whatever the new normal will look like. What Essex-Windsor EMS has done day in and day out is nothing less than amazing. We now have actually gone through all four seasons and are entering into a new one; it’s beyond words how I can express my thanks, my gratitude and my pride on how they have performed.”

A heartfelt

to our EMS heroes for your dedication in keeping us healthy and safe.