Alberta's firefighters believe they have been unfairly overlooked by the province when they omitted them from the list of an expanded list of health-care workers eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
Last week Premier Jason Kenney announced that paramedics and other EMS personnel had been moved into the first phase of vaccinations by Alberta Health Service (AHS), along with the front-line staff at hospital intensive care units (ICU) and nursing homes.
However, while they are pleased that their first responder colleagues will be receiving the vaccines, the Alberta Fire Fighters Association (AFFA) and the Alberta Fire Chiefs Association (AFCA), they feel they are in no less danger of contracting COVID.
The AFCA has written the province asking them to add firefighters to the list of frontline health workers who will be inoculated against the virus in Phase 1.
"Every day, municipal fire/medical response agencies across the province provide emergency medical first response care to Albertans. Up to 70 per cent of fire department calls are to medical emergencies," the letter states, adding that this is especially the case in rural communities where firefighters often arrive before any other forms of first responders. “Firefighters are at grave risk of contracting the virus. The risk to communities also increases as more firefighters go into isolation, often leaving a department short of trained personnel.”
AFFA union president Brad Readman said although a few urban fire departments with an integrated EMS would benefit from the announcement, it leaves out the vast majority of firefighters.
"It is the firefighters of stand-alone fire departments that are left out," he said. "From our perspective, it is a big misstep. Our members are often in conjunction with EMS and are actually the first ones on the scene and therefore exposed to the same dangers. So we don't know why the province wouldn't take the same approach as they have in Ontario and include firefighters."
Readman is quick to point out that the AFFA is not asking the province to exclude anyone already on the list of professions included in the first phase of the vaccine rollout.
He also understands the number of vaccines doses the province receives at one time is limited, but the AFFA believes there is sufficient product to include firefighters.
"We know the reported numbers of people who have been vaccinated has been inflated," Readman said. "We are hearing stories about people who are not involved in patient care such as management getting the vaccine ... so we are saying let's take another look at this and see who really needs it on the front-line."
At the Jan. 11 media briefing, the premier stated that the pace the province can put the vaccines in people's arms would soon outpace the number of doses they receive from the federal government.
Two days later, Alberta Health Services (AHS)announced they had begun delaying appointments in certain zones due to lack of available doses to meet capacity.
Local reaction
Barrhead Regional Fire Services (BRFS) chief Garry Hove said he was shocked to learn Jan. 11's announcement did not include all MFR, adding he has not received any information one way or another his members were eligible to receive the vaccines.
"[The announcement] said EMTs, and we respond to the EMT level when we have EMTs," he said, adding as a paid-on-call volunteer fire department an EMT is not always available. "People who are part of Alberta's First Medical Responder program need to be included [as part of Phase 1]."
He also agreed with the AFFA and AFCA that rural firefighters have an increased risk of contracting the virus, despite all their mitigation efforts.
Hove also noted that if firefighters do contract the virus and have to self isolate, it could put the department's response at risk. Fortunately, he said, for the first time in recent memory the department has a full roster and so far when a firefighter has had to self-isolate because they have exhibited potential COVID symptoms, there are still enough firefighters to do the job.
But Hove said that might not always be the case, despite the full roster, and one way to protect firefighter's health along with ensuring departments have enough and the appropriate people to respond with, is to include MFR as part of Phase 1 in its vaccination plan.
