Literature Review
This chapter will focus on the empirical literature associated with the major factors that directly influence the planning and preparedness of pre-hospital and emergency ambulance services during the COVID-19 pandemic. This COVID-19 is caused primarily by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and can cause the person mild to severe respiratory problems, which might lead to death. This virus was firstly found in the city of Wuhan, China and the cause of this virus first originated in bats or pangolins (Mohammadi et al., 2021).
Emergency Medical Service (EMS) during the pandemic
Emergency medical services EMS plays an important role in the functionality of disaster operations, including responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most researchers will document the role of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) (Mulyono et al., 2021). During the whole course of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were various reports throughout the globe which highlighted an increment in the overall EMS call volume. Considering the example of New York City during the pandemic, where the Emergency Medical Service calls rose from 4000 calls daily to more than 7000 calls, where such a dramatic increment in the overall call flow in this department ended up putting great pressure on it (Marques et al., 2020). Even when the pandemic started to emerge, the number of Emergency Medical Service calls increased unprecedentedly in most locations worldwide.
Another example can be taken from Israel, where there was an increment of 1900 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, whereas in countries like Copenhagen and Denmark, it rose to 24 per cent. In New York City, the call flow of Emergency Medical Service rose to 50 per cent compared to other countries like Tijuana and Mexico, which faced a massive drop in non-urgent calls, but an increment of 11.2 per cent in urgent calls (Ball et al., 2020). All of these increments and fluctuations in the flow of Emergency Medical Services were a combination of panic and missed information about the pandemic. Additionally, such massive increments in the overall Emergency Medical Service calls ended up straining the EMS systems, further leading to Dramatic community health effects, including psychological and mental factors. When the pandemic was at its peak at the end of 2020 and the start of 2021, there was a massive 55 per cent increment in ambulance calls, making pre-hospital management a massive challenge (Mohammadi et al., 2021).
Availability of Hospitals, Medical Supplies and Equipment
In the initial part of the pandemic, there was a massive shortage of different Personal Protection Equipment such as hospital gowns, gloves, masks and even technological equipment like respirators (Jaffe et al., 2021). This caused the general public and policymakers worldwide to panic. China is a major producer of all these elements. Still, due to the pandemic, it increased its imports. It massively decreased its Personal Protective Equipment exports, which led to shortages of all the necessary medical supplies in the World Market. Such shortages formed the basis of reserving supplies manufactured in China by United States Headquartered Multinational. The pandemic hit countries like the USA quite hard, where it declared a state of emergency in March 2020. At the same time, there was a 5 to 30 per cent decreed in the overall import of medical supplies from countries producing them, such as China, throughout 2020 (Jaffe et al., 2022).
The same happened in Asian and European countries, relying primarily on manufacturing countries like China for their supplies. The exports had an increment of 1250 per cent in the prices of medical equipment, which further led to shortages and affordability issues (Jaffe et al., 2021). Apart from medical supplies and equipment, there were massive shortages in labour and human resources, where most companies laid off their workers to stop the spread of the pandemic. In different hospitals throughout the world, most employees ended up leaving their jobs voluntarily, including different doctors, nurses and other staff members, which made handling the patients very difficult. A report published by Hadian et al., (2022) suggests a massive drop of 37 per cent in the hospital staff and approximately 40 to 60 per cent increment of patients during the peak pandemic times at the end of 2020.
Communication
The conceptuality of communication is considered of utmost importance in all industries and the lives of all individuals (Jaffe et al., 2021). The word “Communication” is extracted from the Latin word “Communicare”, which means sharing and includes different ideas, emotions, or feelings. According to Aminizadeh et al., (2022) 70 to 80 per cent of the person’s working time is mainly spent on communication, which includes reading, writing or listening to the people around. The impact of the pandemic on different vulnerable groups primarily relied on the quality of communication-related to health risks or danger. Strategic planning would allow for taking a full account of the way of life conditions, values associated with the cultures and experiences related to the risk that affects actions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Various communication challenges were raised due to the pandemic and were considered sufficiently novel because any existing training did not cover them. During the pandemic, it was quite evident that all in-person training sessions were not feasible; therefore, internet-based training or teaching was considered to train or educate diverse healthcare professionals. Additionally, research done by Sonkin et al., (2021) highlighted that individuals that covered their faces with masks affected the content of their communications, willingness to be involved in a conversation and feelings of interpersonal connections. These individuals further highlighted that communications were frustrating, fatiguing and embarrassing.
International aid and Cooperation between countries
No unitary body is directly responsible for the coordination and distribution of foreign aid, where these elements are directly comprised of bilateral or multilateral aid. In Bilateral aid, one country directly provides aid for another country, whereas, in multilateral aid, many countries are involved (Sarchahi et al., 2022). During the pandemic, different international corporations were involved in helping out different countries during, before and after. These include The World Bank, the United Nations and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Jaffe et al., 2022). These are multilateral aid and are considered one of the biggest agenda setters in the world and plan to sustain the world by 2030. All of these aids were actively involved in helping different countries throughout the world and are the sole reason why most of those countries were able to survive during the pandemic. The World Bank deployed 160 billion in June 2021 to help all the countries battling the pandemic (Ball et al., 2020).
References
Aminizadeh, M., Saberinia, A., Salahi, S., Sarhadi, M., Jangipour Afshar, P. and Sheikhbardsiri, H., 2022. Quality of working life and organizational commitment of Iranian pre-hospital paramedic employees during the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 15(1), pp.36-44.
Ball, J., Nehme, Z., Bernard, S., Stub, D., Stephenson, M. and Smith, K., 2020. Collateral damage: Hidden impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest system-of-care. Resuscitation, 156, pp.157-163.
Hadian, M., Jabbari, A., Abdollahi, M., Hosseini, E. and Sheikhbardsiri, H., 2022. Explore pre-hospital emergency challenges in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic: A quality content analysis in the Iranian context. Frontiers in Public Health, 10, p.864019.
Jaffe, E., Sonkin, R., Alpert, E.A. and Zerath, E., 2021. Responses of a pre-hospital emergency medical service during military conflict versus COVID-19: a retrospective comparative cohort study. Military Medicine.
Jaffe, E., Sonkin, R., Podolsky, T., Alpert, E.A. and Siman-Tov, M., 2022. The role of Israel’s emergency medical services during a pandemic in the pre-exposure period. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 16(2), pp.477-481.
Marques, L.C., Lucca, D.C., Alves, E.O., Fernandes, G.C.M. and Nascimento, K.C.D., 2020. COVID-19: nursing care for safety in the mobile pre-hospital service. Texto & Contexto-Enfermagem, 29.
Mohammadi, F., Tehranineshat, B., Bijani, M. and Khaleghi, A.A., 2021. Management of COVID-19-related challenges faced by EMS personnel: a qualitative study. BMC emergency medicine, 21(1), pp.1-9.
Mulyono, N.B., Pambudi, N.F., Ahmad, L.B. and Adhiutama, A., 2021. Determining response time factors of emergency medical services during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Emergency Services.
Sarchahi, Z., Ghodsi, H., lakziyan, R. and Froutan, R., 2022. Exploring the challenges of prehospital emergency personnel in covid-19 pandemic: A qualitative study. Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management, 17(1), pp.111-119.
Sonkin, R., Alpert, E.A., Katz, D.E. and Jaffe, E., 2021. Maximizing the Role of Emergency Medical Services in COVID-19 Response. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, pp.1-7.
