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PBA President Interviewed about Covid-19
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Page 8 ~The Smithtown News ~ April 16, 2020 By DAVID AMBRO Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association (PBA) president Noel DiGerolamo, during an interview last week, offered a glimpse into the impact the coronavirus (COVID-19) has had on both himself personally and the Suffolk County Police Department. During a telephone interview Friday, April 10 from his home where he is recovering from a bout with the virus, Mr. DiGerolamo shared the health effects he had from the virus and talked about the precautions that police officers are taking to prevent spreading it to their families. “I’m better now,” he said. “I am probably ninety percent.” “I had exposure to a couple of people in county government who tested positive. I am with them frequently and they told me they tested positive,” Mr. DiGerolamo. “So when I started feeling the symptoms coming on with the cough and the difficulty breathing, I self quarantined and got a test. It came back positive also, so I have been quarantined since March 26.” “It takes a toll on you. The effect it has on your respiratory system is significant,” he said. “It’s not the regular flu.” “It really works you over and you have to stay the course with your therapeutic treatments, whether it be the over the counter, fever reducing medication or the deep breathing exercises for your lungs, you have to stay the course. Otherwise it will do a number on you.” As his condition continues to improve, Mr. DiGerolamo said he has become eager to get back to work. “I’m looking forward to getting back to being there for our members,” he concluded. At the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, the state imposed protocol that put first responders from local fire departments and emergency medical services agencies and police officers on the front line triaging patients at their home and deciding if they should be hospitalized. As a result of that work, there were 78 members of the Suffolk County Police force with the virus at the time of the DiGerolamo interview April 10 and many more EMTs, paramedics and fire department first responders have contracted the virus. “We have people who have to personally decontaminate every day they come home. They change in their garage or a den. They are utilizing separate bathrooms that they don’t let their kids or other family members use where they are cleaning up after every single tour of duty,” he said. As for triaging patients at their homes after 911 calls, Mr. DiGerolamo said police and firefighters and EMS agencies have worked closely together to comply with the difficult COVID-19 protocol. “Really it became a team effort by the entire first responder system beginning with the 911 call,” he said. According to Mr. DiGerolamo, the 911 operator taking the call will conduct an immediate analysis of every call with a series of questions: “Is there somebody in the household with a cough? Is there someone with a fever? Has anybody been exposed? Has anybody subsequently recovered? They try to get as much information as they can,” Mr. DiGerolamo said. “Then the call goes to the dispatcher, which has to provide all of that information to the police officer on the street to take all the necessary precautions to answer the call.” Mr. DiGerolamo said sometimes people are not totally forthcoming on the telephone, worried that if they provide the wrong answer then first responders will not come. “They may be afraid that if they say ‘yes’ they are not going to come, so they don’t want to say ‘yes.’” “And then there are the people who call 911 and they have an actual police emergency: ‘someone is trying to break into my house,’ ‘there is a burglary in progress,’ or a domestic violence incident or a cardiac medical situation. We are not stopping our response to those calls,” Mr. DiGerolamo said. “When someone calls 911 and you have to get there because a family member is in cardiac arrest, we get there, we go in, and we’re doing CPR. We are not stopping our normal process of how we respond to emergencies,” Mr. DiGerolamo said. “If you’re calling 911 and someone is trying to break into your house or coming in your window, we’re showing up. We’re not saying, ‘Oh! Okay, well, we can’t show up because of COVID-19. Run to your neighbors house.’ The police department still responds. We don’t have the luxury of determining what we care to do and what we don’t care to do.” “We have an obligation and we have to ensure a continuity of service to the public that is not disrupted,” he said. “All of the basic needs are provided by government. That’s what we do every day, day in and day out.” Mr. DiGerolamo said firefighters are often first on the scene in cases of medical emergencies, but the police officers are still responding to all of those calls alongside fire department first responders. “I want to say thank you to the men and women who are putting themselves out there every single day to ensure that the continuity of service continues. And thank you to our medical professionals and people in the private sector who have shown a tremendous amount of support through donations. They are feeding medical professionals, they are sending supplies to the hospitals, they have been sending food to the precincts,” Mr. DiGerolamo said. “Everybody coming together has been a beautiful thing to see—how when we stick together we can accomplish so much. But it is really our government’s obligation to take care of those public employees and make sure they are not forgotten.” Union makes push for bill to cover front line By DAVID AMBRO
Still quarantined and recovering from the coronavirus (COVID-19), Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association (PBA) President Noel DiGerolamo returned to work advocating for state legislation to provide first responders who test positive for COVID-19, including police officers, with line-of-duty injury benefits with a presumption that they contracted the virus on the job. Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone announced Friday, April 10 that the county will provide COVID-19 line-of-injury benefits to all unionized county employees. “In an effort to ensure the continuity of operations, Suffolk County has reached an agreement with our public employee unions to protect all essential employees who are working every day during this pandemic,” Mr. Bellone said. “This agreement will guarantee that these vital employees will receive their full salary and medical benefits should they contract COVID-19 without having to utilize their personal, sick or vacation hours. In addition, the County will delay longevity payments due April 2020 for a period of six months so that the County can deal with the negative economic and budgetary impacts that have resulted. By working together, we will continue to address the immediate public health and safety concerns in a cost-effective manner.” During an April 10 interview, Mr. DiGerolamo commended the county for backing the police and first responders, but he said state
legislation is essential to codify the line-of-injury benefits. Democratic State Senators James Gaughran (D-Northport), Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood), John Brooks (D-Massapequa) and Todd Kaminsky (D-Rockville Centre) introduced legislation (S8117A) March 23 to amend New York State General Municipal Law to provide COVID-19 benefits to police and first responders. The bill was amended April 8 and recommended for consideration to the Senate Local Government Committee, which is chaired by Mr. Gaughran. The bill creates a presumption that impairment of health caused by COVID-19 was incurred in the performance and discharge of duty of certain police, parole and probation officers and other emergency responders; and it relates to the use of sick leave due to COVID-19. “What we need now is for the state to step up,” Mr. DiGerolamo said. “The Bellone administration did the right thing. They acknowledged that for any first responder or essential worker who is currently working, it will be presumed that you contracted COVID-19 as a result of your employment, so you are going to be covered.” “That is great because it gives people a certain amount of ease to know that if, God forbid, they have an extended illness, or if they are out sick for an extended period of time, that they are not going to be taken off the payroll, that they are not going to have to worry about health care for their family, and that there will be a certain level of benefits they will receive going forward,” Mr. DiGerolamo said. “But now we need the state to step up and do the right thing for the first responders,” Mr. DiGerolamo said. “The county can acknowledge it, but the state has to pass this legislation. Martinez, Brooks and Gaughran all sponsored the legislation, but we don’t need that legislation sitting up on the governor’s desk. We need him to act on it.” Early on in the coronavirus outbreak, the state issued protocol for police and emergency first responders related to COVID-19 emergency 911 calls. The protocol requires that police and first responders go into a patient’s home, evaluate their symptoms for the virus, and determine if they should try to stay home and treat their sickness or if they should be transported to the hospital by ambulance. As a result of that protocol, police and first responders have been exposed to and are contracting the virus. “The government can’t turn its back on these first responders,” Mr. DiGerolamo said. “They need to say to them ‘we will ensure that your family is taken care of should you succumb to this.’ That is what they need to do and right now they are sitting silent.” Mr. DiGerolamo said the Suffolk County Police Department is doing a tremendous job under unprecedented circumstances answering the call of COVID-19 patients with members of local fire departments and emergency medical service agencies. “We have members of the Senate and members of the Assembly who are trying to do the right thing but to have this sitting on the governor’s desk doesn’t give ease to the men and women who are risking their lives every single day,” he said. “I understand the reluctance of government to make commitments that may have a fiscal impact. But you are asking people to risk their lives and at the same time you are trying to put a price tag on that. You can’t have it both ways,” Mr. DiGerolamo said. “These are the men and women who are putting their own personal safety and that of their families aside to do government’s work. Government should not be abandoning these people in their time of need.” As of April 10, Mr. DiGerolamo said 78 members of the Suffolk County Police Department have tested positive with COVID-19: 54 officers, 12 detectives and 12 supervisory personnel. He said that number is always in flux because as some officers go out sick or have to go into quarantine because of direct contact with someone who was confirmed positive, others are recovering from the virus or coming back from quarantine. “You can have up to one hundred people out at any given time,” Mr. DiGerolamo said. “It’s a fluid number but we are managing it as the best we can.” Mr. DiGerolamo said had it not been for the preparedness of Suffolk County Police Chief Stuart Cameron, the impact of COVID-19 on the police force could have been worse. “We are very fortunate that we have Stu Cameron as our Chief of Department. This is really right up his alley. It’s his forte—emergency management,” Mr. DiGeralomo said. “When he saw this coming at the end of last year, based on what was going on overseas, he immediately ordered additional personal protection equipment (PPEs) for our department, which we had gotten in time for the outbreak.” “So it was his foresight that really helped us a lot through this process. I have to acknowledge that,” Mr. DiGerolamo said. He also commended County Executive Bellone for his understanding of what the first responders are up against as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. “We raised significant concerns about the health and wellbeing of the members and them bringing home this silent killer and potentially exposing their family, spouses, children, parents, relatives. They are exposing them to this virus that can be significant to older people and depending on the individual and their own personal immune system and how they are able to battle it, it could debilitate anybody and we have seen that people of all ages are succumbing to the virus,” Mr. DiGerolamo said, then paused for a cough.
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