How has COVID-19 affected the overall health of Ambulance Dispatchers in the Health Care setting?

Impact of COVID 19 on the overall Health of Ambulance Dispatchers in the Health Care Setting
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Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Emergency Response Services (EMS) or ambulance services provide medical transport and medical care to patients in need of emergency services (Golding et al., 2020). Every country has its unique way of designing and operating EMS. Generally, an EMS system ambulance requests through a central emergency telephone number (Jaffe et al., 2020). Individuals receiving those emergency and non-emergency calls in the healthcare facility are called ambulance dispatchers. They take enough information from the caller to coordinate emergency services required.
In a healthcare setting, Golding et al. (2020) defined an ambulance dispatcher as a person employed by a healthcare organization to dispatch a designated emergency ambulance service. The EMS medical director authorizes these individuals according to the policy of the EMS services. Their work is based heavily on answering telephone calls. However, they can also decide the appropriate emergency response according to the healthcare organization's policies and procedures (La et al., 2020).
Additionally, they transmit information to the appropriate emergency service agency, coordinate sending emergency response personnel, and monitor the status of an assigned ambulance or emergency team (Mhango et al., 2020). More often, ambulance dispatchers are allowed to instruct the caller on what to do while the emergency team is on the way. Some of them are trained to provide medical help through the phone. For instance, they can help the caller with first aid tips until the emergency medical team arrives.
With the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, ambulance dispatchers are finding the work to be tiresome and stressful because they have to work round the clock to respond to people in need of emergency services. Most affected countries have been issued a stay-at-home order and allowed only to leave in case of an emergency. The governments have also provided a helpline where people can call for emergency help if they suspect a COVID-19 case. Health ambulance dispatchers operate these calls.
Although they contribute hugely to fighting COVID-19 pandemic, the overall health of these professionals is being affected by the increased spread of the epidemic. This study aims to find out how the COVID-19 affects the overall health of ambulance dispatchers in the healthcare setting, with a focus on the Parry Sound District healthcare facility.
1.2 Scope and Objectives of the Study
The primary objective of this study is to determine the effect of COVID-19 on the overall health of ambulance dispatchers in the Parry Sound District Healthcare facility. The study also aims to provide the possible resources and solutions needed by ambulance dispatchers to address the health problems caused by this pandemic. The study addresses the mental health problem faced by ambulance dispatchers in the healthcare setting as they continue to respond to emerging cases of COVID-19.
1.3 Research Questions
* How has COVID-19 affected the overall health of ambu...