An Cosantóir

www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE | 31 on site are clinical supervisors who are nurses and pharma- cists from the HSE who answer any medical questions that arise. The cadets role in the CCC is to make calls to individuals who have contracted the Covid-19 virus and those who have come in contact with someone who has the virus. The training they received for the CCC was conducted over two weeks in Dr. Steevens' Hospital in Dublin, which is the HQ for the HSE. The cadets quickly learned the procedures the HSE have in place, from the different call types to the call script that they must read. The calls are broken down into three types, Call 1, Call 2, and Call 3. Call 1 is the initial call from a patient to their GP with suspected Covid-19 symptoms, from there they will be tested for the virus. If a patients test comes back positive for the virus they are then passes to the CCC for a Call 2. The Call 2 is initiated by the cadets to the patient and a call script is used to ascertain who the person may have come into con- tact with since their symptoms began minus two days. From this list the Call 3 is then created and those individuals are then called to inform them they have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for the virus. We spoke to Cadet Hickey and Cadet Ahearn about the training they received for the CCC, they told us, 'Our cadet class was first split into its platoons and separated for the training, the reason why this was done was in the event a member of one of the platoons contracted Covid-19 the other platoon would still be able to continue to work with- out being effected.' 'The training was quick and you learnt as you go, with us making calls the very first day.' 'When we first started the training, we were using a paper-based script system that was a little bit slow, but before the end of the two weeks we had started to trial a new HSE computer- based script system. This computer script was much easier to store the information and it even got modified around some of the feedback that we gave to make it more efficient, which is amazing.' The CCC is operating between 5-6 days a week and making calls for approx. 8 hours each day. It is managing an average of approx. 700 calls every day, with this number dropping as time has progressed and the safety measures put in place by the government. The maximum number of calls being made by the site reached an all-time high of approx. 1500 calls in a single day, which is one of the largest number of calls for any CCC across the country. Over these last number of weeks, the cadets have seen a change in the information that has been taken from a Call 2 patient, this being a significant drop in the numbers of people who have come into contact with that patient. That drop was from an average of 36 people to 5, this shows that most people are adhering to the governments advice and staying at home and not making unnecessary journeys. At the moment the cadet class is broken into two groups, one group operates the CCC while the other is a training group. Cadet Hickey and Cadet Ahearn told us 'Due to our class becoming so competent in conducting calls that we have been asked to instruct in other CCC sites, like DCU, UCD, Trinity, and even in the Revenue Offices. We are also supervis- ing calls at these locations. At the moment we are currently training the Army Band on how to make calls and use the com- puter system. We don't know what is on the horizon, but we are going to be as prepared as we can for any eventuality.' We also got a chance to speak to the CCC site mobiliser Dearbhla De Lasa, she told us how the site is managed and ran from day to day. She also told us how the members of the 96th Cadet Class have been handling this unique chal- lenge. She told us 'The cadets are showing great leadership and are very efficient with dealing with this challenge. They also show great empathy when engaging with the individu- als on the calls which is a very important part of dealing with people under this situation.' On closing the interview, Cadet Hickey and Cadet Ahearn told us 'We are delighted to be making such a difference like this so early in our careers and to able to be there for our country during this difficult time.' These comments show the commitment and dedication instilled in members of the DF in our role as part of the national response to combat this virus, and that we, members of the DF remain ready to re- spond professionally as we strive to Strengthen the Nation.

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