An “Essential Services” Workforce for Crisis Response

COVID-19 is a worldwide crisis—cruelly infectious, fast-moving, and lethal It has stressed or overwhelmed health care infrastructures on a global scale In the United States, hospitals have been ravaged Workers who provide for basic needs on which everyone’s health depends have put their own health at greater risk It is the very threat to these workers—and, by extension, to all of us—that offers an opportunity to reimagine the concept of “essential services” during a crisis and, thereby, better control our destiny (Berry 1999) In the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States was woefully unprepared to fully support and protect the health care, farm, grocery, pharmacy, sanitation, utilities, transportation, delivery, police, fire, and other workers who help keep the entire population safe and well The lack of personal protective equipment for clinical health care staff rightly received the greatest public attention Largely unrecognized, however, were other essential health care staff who also were at risk: respiratory therapists who assist in intubations and other procedures, custodians who clean patients’ rooms, physical therapists who help intensive care unit patients recover strength and mobility, paramedics, drivers and cleaners of ambulances, and others These equally essential health care workers have lower pay and status but need support and protection just the same