Challenging of Emergency Medical Service System during COVID-19 Outbreak in Thailand

Abstract

The outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China in the late 2019 has led to epidemics in Thailand; created impacts towards emergency medical service (EMS) system of the country; and become new challenges that the system must adapt for the utmost safety of the patients and personnel. During the first and second waves of COVID-19 epidemic (March 2020 and January 2021 respectively), the EMS system had not been heavily affected since the number of cases were not overwhelming. Therefore, the efforts were given towards preparedness and prevention of infection among EMS personnel. During the third wave of infection in April 2021, the EMS system was heavily affected and was instructed to operate under three set of missions; including (1) sustain the continuity of EMS system under 1669 call number; (2) transport COVID-19 infected patients from their residences to hospital or field hospital units; and (3) support vaccination program and stand by for possible adverse events following immunization. With this situation, EMS system of Thailand has been sustained with the pooling of resources and volunteers out of the system to support the missions in affected areas. Thus, there was no severe negative impacts against the population, and the system can adapt with the situation by increasing self-awareness.