This interview with Chez Valenta details the experiences and horrors experienced by healthcare workers in New York during the COVID-19 pandemic. Valenta talks about the mental health issues that paramedics and other medical staff face on the job, the unusual medical difficulties and high call volumes that arose with COVID-19, and the difficulties associated with finding good information, and keepin g in contact with family abroad.
Emergency medical technicians; COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-; COVID-19 (Disease)--Social Aspects; Epidemics--Social Aspects; Hospitals--Emergency services--United States; COVID-19 (Disease)--Health aspects; Emergency medical services; Mental health; Valenta, Chez
Format
oral histories
Genre
Interviews
Date
2020
Physical Description
33 pages
Note (Biographical)
Originally from New Zealand, Chez Valenta is a rescue paramedic who lives in Brooklyn. At the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, Valenta had worked in paramedicine for twenty years
Note
Interviewed by Rishi Goyal on October 25, 2020
Note (Provenance)
Chez Valenta, Gift, transferred from Columbia Center for Oral History Research 2023