Westmoreland County on Thursday started screening public safety employees for coronavirus symptoms and could soon expand the program to include courthouse staff and visitors.
Commissioners approved a monthlong contract with Amerisafe Group to furnish trained employees to conduct screenings at the county’s public safety headquarters on Donohoe Road in Hempfield, where a staff of 52 dispatchers man phones and coordinate first responders.
“Our priority is to keep the virus from attacking our 911 center,” Public Safety Director Roland Mertz said. “The front line of this, aside from hospitals and first responders, is 911 dispatchers.”
Dispatchers will have screeners take their temperatures upon reporting for duty. Anyone with a fever will be sent home, Mertz said.
The contract with Amerisafe Group will run through April 30 and pay the company $60 an hour plus the cost of all personal protection equipment and digital thermometers. Company employees will be paid $90 per hour if required to work overtime. Commissioners could extend the contract on a monthly basis.
Temperature screenings are only part of the safety precautions put in place at the 911 center. Mertz said partitions have been installed to separate work stations and plans are in place to move the dispatching operation off site if a virus outbreak were to occur among staff at the current facility.
Medical screening, conducted by in-house staff at Westmoreland Manor, the county-owned nursing home, as well as at the jail and juvenile detention center, have been ongoing for the last several weeks, commissioners said.
Commissioner Sean Kertes said officials are in discussions with lawyers and Amerisafe to soon expand the screenings of employees and visitors at the courthouse.
“We need to make sure our employees and the public are safe,” Kertes said.
Commissioner Doug Chew said safety screenings have become an essential tool in fighting the virus.
“None of this is abnormal now,” Chew said.
