You can’t fight a global health pandemic with lunch bags and recycling, but that is what firefighters across the state are being asked to do.
When I begin my shift as a full-time firefighter, there is a brown bag with my name on it. The bag includes a used N95 respirator to wear. It is the same mask I’ve worn on previous calls. That means when I respond to emergencies involving the elderly, the immunocompromised, the sick and the frail, I am inadequately protected from exposure. It also means that I’m inadequately protecting those I’m trying to help. And I am not alone.
As president of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts, a union that represents 12,000 first responders, each night we survey more than 200 fire locals. We started the survey about a week ago when firefighters started testing positive for the coronavirus. We analyze a daily total of first responders quarantined, tested, symptomatic or positive. We also know whether members are adequately protected. About 75 locals — representing one third of our total membership — are reporting that they are, like me, reusing N95 respirators.
In addition, nearly 100 locals — representing about 6,000 first responders in the commonwealth — report that inadequate proper protective equipment is forcing their departments to downgrade their response or protocols on emergency calls. That downgrading could mean fewer firefighters, fewer apparatus, or even less medical care or treatment on calls.
And these departments may be the “lucky” ones. Many fire departments are forced to respond with surgical masks. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention warns that while the surgical mask provides some protection, it “does NOT provide the wearer with a reliable level of protection from inhaling smaller airborne particles and is not considered respiratory protection.”
If, or, when, first responders do become infected and disabled, we may not be adequately protected legally or financially. Currently, there is no guarantee that our employers or retirement boards must recognize a temporary or permanent disability because of coronavirus as being work-related. We could be forced to proceed through a humiliating process of proving who, what, when, where and how we acquired a debilitating virus, even though our job required extraordinary and inadequately protected exposure every day.
This lack of proper physical and legal protection is not just bad for my members, it’s bad for the public health of Massachusetts. Your local police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and military personnel are the first to arrive at a fire, an accident, a shooting, and, in this case, a public health pandemic.
We are the ones who enter residences to care, treat and/or transport individuals who may have the coronavirus or symptoms. Our job requires that we be exposed every shift for long periods of time to multiple individuals who may have coronavirus or other infectious diseases.
If we are not adequately protected, then we increase the risk of transmission to our fellow first responders, to health care personnel, to members of our communities, and to our families. This then places a burden on our communities. Guidance from the CDC requires that first responders exposed in certain situations be removed from work for anywhere from three to 14 days. This forces many municipalities to pay first responders to stay home because they present too much of a health risk at work. By providing adequate PPE, we can maximize the number of selfless public safety personnel available to combat this crisis.
Health care personnel are required to use N95 respirators in many situations. The PFFM strongly supports the provision of N95s to our nurses, physicians and other health care employees. Massachusetts needs to extend that commitment to the first responders to a global pandemic.
Massachusetts also needs to provide adequate legal protection to firefighters who became disabled because of coronavirus. Firefighters injured or harmed on the job are entitled to workers compensation-like benefits and medical care. The Massachusetts Legislature currently is debating a bill to recognize our exposure to infectious diseases. If enacted, firefighters who become temporarily or permanently disabled from a job that required them to respond to this pandemic — often with inadequate equipment — will be assured their disability will be treated as work-related.
As I’ve stated multiple times, Massachusetts first responders accept the dangers few others will. Just as we run into burning buildings that people run out of, we run to care for those individuals everyone else is mandated to stay away from. I’ll keep going to every call, with my lunch bag and recycled N95. I’m sure Massachusetts will do what it takes to take care of first responders.
Rich MacKinnon Jr. is the president of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts and a full-time firefighter for the town of Whitman.
