Healthcare workers have been waging to stop Gov. Mills from requiring them to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Meanwhile, the first responders, working within the state’s Emergency Management System, have already been plagued by a shortage of volunteers and trained EMTs. As of midnight Friday, under the deadline for the state’s emergency rulemaking for healthcare workers – EMTs, Paramedics, ambulance drivers, volunteer firefighters, and police also faced the decision to either get the jab or leave their profession.
Vaccine or Out—No Compromise
In response, many have quit. Or been “expelled”, or fired. Some have already been removed just for questioning forcing mandates on all Mainers.
Their refusal to submit to the vaccine mandate will most certainly exacerbate the EMS shortage that has been ongoing since the pandemic began. It will add precious minutes, perhaps hours, to response times to accidents and life-threatening medical emergencies.
In some counties, observers say, small town EMS providers may not be able to respond at all to 911 calls.
This was put in the spotlight Friday night as Tucker Carlson discussed the dire situation with State Senator Lisa Keim, and she lamented the lack of news coverage on Maine’s crisis. In Maine, all other legal avenues have closed, except this last hope of a ruling Friday.
With no ruling by Justice Murphy, which was expected, workers have been abandoned over the weekend after the deadline passed to decide to leave or get jabbed.
Enter the Liberty Caucus
State EMS Director Sam Hurley is working with a group of Republican legislators that have formed the Liberty Caucus to provide hard numbers by Sunday on how many EMS workers have quit since midnight Friday, when the emergency order went into effect.
Liberty Caucus member Sen. Lisa Keim on Tucker Carlson’s show sounded the alarm about the “dire consequences” coming from the crisis, which is not being reported at all the mainstream press.
“We don’t know (yet) on the state level how many (EMS providers) have been let go,” Sen. Keim said on the show. “But there will be 911 calls that will go unanswered in the state of Maine.”
Carlson said, “So people who suffer heart failure or have a stroke, and call for an ambulance and it doesn’t come, some of those people will die as a result of this.” Keim nodded, saying “That’s the most dire consequence of all, and the major concern we have.”
Keim added that it is the height of mismanagement to impose the mandate on people who are actually the most careful of anyone in our society. Who were the first responders throughout this crisis, “and now we’re kicking them out and saying their services are no longer needed. And the Maine people don’t know.”
Severe Labor Shortage Coming to Maine?
Maine people also don’t know that in some small towns with ambulance services, anywhere from 50% to 80% of their workers will be quitting or not answering calls. EMS workers are particularly upset because they don’t work in a hospital setting, and thus have been exempt from having to get the other 6 vaccines the state requires. They will still be exempt from having to get the other 6 vaccines under the amended rules, yet they will have to get the cv vax.
“What makes the covid vaccine more important than the other six?,” asked York County Fire Administrator Roger Hooper during oral testimony on the CDC’s amended rules. “It just adds to the skepticism of the vaccine, and fuels some more of this debate. This whole process has been rushed,” he said.
Speaking as a certified Maine EMT, I consider this an abuse of the Maine system of emergency care which we are licensed to provide to Mainers in need. Paying lip service to the needs of our health care workers, during this crisis, and then deserting us to the whims of politicians? Forcing experimental vaccines we know are risky and acting like they know more about our health than we do
It’s no longer tolerable.