Harwich Fire Chief Worried About Medical Care on Cape Cod

Harwich Fire Chief Norman Clarke Jr. 

HARWICH – Harwich Fire Chief Norman Clarke said that he is concerned about the effect that Cape Cod Healthcare’s decision to furlough 600 employees is going to have on the medical care of residents.

“Cape Cod Hospital, I understand, has laid off hundreds of employees. That’s a problem,” said Clarke.

“The number of calls that my fellow chiefs have talked about and are concerned about are not COVID calls, but you could say are COVID related calls, because we are now seeing a substantial increase of people that are very sick or even dying because, we guess, are too afraid to call for help or go to the hospital.”

Clarke said that although the field hospital at Joint Base Cape Cod is being shut down due to a lack of surge in COVID-19 cases within the community, and that the closure was a good sign, he and residents are still apprehensive about their medical care.

“We’ve got to see that trend stop. And continue, from Boston and from Washington, to instill that our people are safe. We are very concerned about that,” said Clarke.

Cape and Islands State Senator Julian Cyr (D-Truro) agreed with Clarke’s statement stressing the importance of residents getting care when needed.

“I think [Chief Clarke’s] point around urging people to seek healthcare when they need it is essential. When you look at our emergency room intakes, particularly in recent weeks, most of them are not COVID related. They’re an individual who, say had signs and symptoms of a stroke, opted not to go to the emergency department early on, and then is going days or weeks later when it’s much worse,” said Cyr.

The furloughs by Cape Cod Healthcare, Cyr said, were inevitable with the statewide drop in revenues for hospitals, however it was an accomplishment they avoided furloughs until only recently.

“The furloughs and 600 workers, look this is unfortunate, but if you look at other hospital systems across the state, this was one of the last hospital systems. Many of these systems did furloughs seven or eight weeks ago and it’s purely a function of revenue not coming into the hospital. They’re losing millions of dollars a week.”