Ambulance Driver, Oswald Bedlow, is our Frontline Worker of the Week

May 24, 2020 News

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By Sharmain Grainger

Change sometimes can be hard, especially when it is drastic, even to the point of the unfamiliar.

Adapting to drastic change could be excruciating for some who see it more as a bother rather than endearing. But some times change, even though hard, is an absolute necessity.
Enters the coronavirus disease, COVID-19. Never before has drastic change been more necessary. How do you graduate from freedom, to go and come as you please, to being restricted, and almost overnight too.
How are excessively sociable people expected to quit such a norm and embrace social and physical distancing entirely?
Clearly, it has been a hard task to rein-in people’s mindset, evidenced by the fact that some have to be policed into adherence even though sickness or, even worse, death, could be the outcome.
Though those impacted globally have been vast, it seems not vast enough for the majority to gravitate to needed change. But “who feels it knows it” is the conclusion of Oswald Bedlow.
This simple down to earth fellow, unlike wayward culprits detesting the measures imposed in wake of COVID-19, has an appreciation for change during this time.
“Desperate times”, he surely believes “demands desperate measures” and he is prepared to do his part until, if ever, the normal of even early 2020 returns.
But he concedes, given the way things are going, the new normal of nowadays might just remain our reality.
Bedlow’s conclusion comes from an informed place. You see this young man, an ambulance driver working at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), has been a dedicated frontline worker since early March.
Ahead of taking a place on the frontline, Bedlow recalled, though reluctantly at first, agreeing to be a part of a skeleton staff dedicated to dealing with coronavirus cases.
As part of the preparation for this task, he and fellow colleagues making up the response team were schooled by senior medical personnel. This was to ensure that they were well informed of the highly infectious nature of the disease and the protective measures needed to safeguard them while working on the frontline.

The possibility of the disease never reaching here was also a probable projection. But just in case they waited and watched as the disease, based on news reports, inched closer.
With the early March entry of an imported case, speculations that Guyana’s tropical atmosphere could be a deterrent to the disease were quickly dispelled.
SEEKING EMPLOYMENT
Rewind about five years, in the month of August to be exact, Bedlow, in need of a job, applied for work as an ambulance driver at the GPHC. Having aced his interview, the young man, who has been driving since 2008, started out. His biggest challenge was adapting to those emergency transfers which should have been made easy when he, with siren blaring, tried to navigate the city streets to get a patient to needed medical care. But he soon found out that motorists on the roadways are not always accommodating. “Sometimes like people don’t hear the siren and they don’t pull over for you, or, some (motorists) like they panic and would stop in your path or pull over on the wrong side of the road still blocking your path. I find that it can be hard sometimes,” Bedlow said of his job.
But he always had an appreciation for the fact that a blaring siren “don’t mean I have a license to be reckless on the road. More than ever, I have to practice care and caution because I am trying to help save life not end life.”
Even as he adapted to his ambulance driving work, Bedlow, when off-duty, started to indulge in a photography/videographay pastime. This, he said, was triggered when his step-brother, a soca artiste who goes by the stage name Trevon Vibez, decided he needed some assistance in promoting his image.

Bedlow recalled heading over to Dp Records|ViptvGuyana, owned by Darell Pugsley, for the needed instruction. Over the past few years, he has mastered this “enjoyable” pastime. But even this he has had to give up when he signed up to be a part of the GPHC’s COVID-19 response team.
EMBRACING CHANGE
Currently, Bedlow is one of four ambulance drivers required to work 12-hour shifts (7am – 7pm or 7pm -7am) five days a week. With nothing much to do outside of work these days, Bedlow has volunteered to work an extra day, making him a six days a week ambulance driver.
Months into being a part of the COVID-19 response team, he has no apprehension but rather has an appreciation for being among those at the ready to help save lives.
Perhaps like Avengers: Endgame, he sees himself as one of the superheroes availing skills and might to help save planet earth from a Thanos proportion threat.
These days making an emergency trip requires that he suits up from head to toe with Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) including a face shield, mask, gloves and gown “because you never know what you might encounter, so you always have to be ready. Each case has to be treated as a suspect but without discrimation,” he divulged.
Since COVID-19, a typical workday sees him decontaminating after each trip he makes. “One shift, I had to decontaminate about nine times; it all depends on the day…we had to learn how to put on and take off PPEs, how to bathe and every thing so that we stay safe in order to keep doing our thing,” said Bedlow in a quite relaxed tone.
Assuring that he has “conquered his COVID-19 fear”, Bedlow said that he keeps focused on the importance of his job since his actions too could help determine the outcome of a case.

“An ambulance driver is very important because people depend on you to take their loved ones safely to and from point A to point B…and you have that role to play to the best of your abilities.”
But even as he wait some days to be summoned to make a trip, Bedlow said that he finds time to indulge in humourous conversations with his colleagues or sometimes he just shares his daily experience with a few.
When away from work, Bedlow, who lives alone at Vigilance, East Coast Demerara, spends a lot of his time sleeping and listening to music. He confided too that he no longer makes physical time for friends and family and he doesn’t mind since “me staying away from them is for their own safety”.
But this doesn’t mean he isn’t able to make contact with them. According to Bedlow, he takes full advantage of social media and video calling platforms to reach out to his loved ones.
“It is different but necessary”, said this young man of his how he spends his time.
Ushered into the world on October 30, 1987 as the third of seven children born to his parents’ Oswald Bedlow Senior, a retired policeman, and Audrey Assaye, a housewife, he grew at Beterverwagting on the East Coast of Demerara. He attended the Roman Catholic Primary and Beterverwagting Community High schools. “As a child growing up, I always had a passion for driving and for some reason, I always liked helping others too, and I still do to this date, and look at me now, that is exactly what I am doing,” he joked during a telephone conversation.
SAFETY A MUST
Even when not at work he adheres to strict sanatising meaures and never leaves home without a mask. But even as he recognises the importance of adherence, he is disappointed that many people, despite knowing of the COVID-19 threat, continue to be carefree.
“It’s messed up when people see on the news what this virus is doing, literally killing people, and they can still walk around with no mask and refuse to practice social distancing endangering other people. That is like the most unfair thing you can do, you’re not only putting yourself at risk but other people as well, even your own family and friends…” Bedlow lamented.
But there is no way this frontline worker is going to give up on those who need his help, and by extension his country, although he thinks it is “hopeless” to get some people to practice precautionary measures.
“Quitting, for me, is not an option and apart from being an ambulance driver the world depends on us to work together as a team,” said Bedlow whose faith in God helps to keep him steadfast and focused on the work he is entrusted to do. “I learnt that without God we are nothing and only He can carry us through this crisis,” he asserted.

“It’s messed up when people see on the news what this virus is doing, literally killing people, and they can still walk around with no mask and refuse to practice social distancing endangering other people. That is like the most unfair thing you can do, you’re not only putting yourself at risk but other people as well, even your own family and friends…”

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