AUSTIN (KXAN) — A spike in positive COVID-19 cases among the city's medics could put even more stress on emergency services in Austin.
According to the Austin EMS Association, the union that represents workers with Austin-Travis County EMS, one out of 15 medics either are positive with COVID-19 or are suspected to be positive, sidelining them from staffing emergency calls and putting an even further strain on the agency's resources.
Selena Xie, president of AEMSA, said she's concerned about staffing issues that were already low and how the omicron variant of COVID-19 is putting the agency in dire straits. ATCEMS leadership activated emergency plans that require healthy staff members to be on-call or on the clock "24 hours a day with no relief" and work "a record amount of mandatory overtime shifts."
"Psychologists tell us that one key to resilience is rest," Xie said. "I am very worried that our members are not going to feel entitled to fully disconnect from work now, that they are not going to get that essential rest."
On top of increased COVID-19 cases among staff, the agency's academy isn't producing enough qualified cadets. ATCEMS has hired just 16 qualified cadets out of a possible 30, and that comes after the length of the academy was shortened by a month in an effort to get medics on the streets quicker.
"We are having serious problems with recruitment," Xie said. "With well over a hundred openings, we aren’t going to get relief from the status quo. Attrition — including early retirement — is at an all-time high, and we anticipate even more openings in the coming months."
Xie said before the pandemic, ATCEMS employed just 80% of what its budget allows, and that made it vulnerable to "this kind of crisis."
Xie said city officials need to do something to drum up more cadets and keep the medics already employed.
"The City must act with urgency to recruit and retain the country’s best medics here — right now," Xie said. "We’re not running out of time to change things. We are out of time."
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