Guest Post: Emergency Services and COVID

Professor Howard Weiss, recently retired from Temple University, looks at quality issues arising from COVID.

Several sources have reported that due to COVID there has been a decrease in Emergency Services quality. In Philadelphia, the average police response time, the time between a police dispatcher receiving the call and the arrival of the police, was 20% higher in 2021 than in 2020.  In Los Angeles, response times to emergencies increased due to over 200 firefighters missing their shift. In San Diego, response times for its most urgent calls for service rose from 21 minutes in 2018 to 28 minutes in 2020. The problem, of course, is not limited to the U.S. Police response times have also increased in England, and Bermuda has had 48 officers unable to work as opposed to a more normal 16 officers. In addition to delayed response times, no-shows of police, has become more common since the onset of COVID.

The major reasons for the increase in response time are:

• Unavailable emergency personnel because they have been stricken with COVID or quarantined because they were with someone who had COVID
• Layoffs of emergency personnel who are not vaccinated
• Staffing shortages in the 911 call centers
• A spike in crime
• Technology issues

A major concern, if the slow response times continue, is that if police do not respond in a timely fashion then people will stop calling the police at all.

Chapter 13 of your Heizer/Render/Munson textbook notes that “Police and fire departments have provisions for calling in off-duty personnel for major emergencies. Where the emergency is extended, police or fire personnel may work longer hours and extra shifts.” To increase capacity, some cities have done this and some cities have relaxed quarantine rules so emergency personnel can get back to work more quickly. Others have canceled vacation times for personnel. Some cities have brought in others to increase capacity. Another option is to put a web site in place for minor problems such as losing a driver’s license in order to reduce the demand for emergency services.

Not all increases in response times have been due to COVID. For example, in Montreal, response times are slower due to the merger of two police stations. Ft. Worth, Texas, which has the highest response time goal of Texas’ five major cities, had response times that were deemed too slow prior to COVID.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. As a manager in your town, how would you address this concern?
2. What other fields are experiencing the same issues?