Here’s What Maine’s Essential Workers Want You To Know: Various Industries

We asked our Facebook friends to give us a piece of their minds.

Specifically, we wanted those essential workers that are working with the public right now during the pandemic what they wanted Maine and the world to know about being an essential worker during this time.

Today, we focus on Mainer's working in various industries that should not be forgotten about at this time.  They have had to alter the way they work to fit modern restraints. They continue to work during the pandemic to maintain some semblance of normal life for others during this time.

Here's what they had to say:

BJ:
I'm a teacher. Very hard to combine 2 worlds that we struggle tveto keep separate.

Wanda:
My husband and I both repair ATMs and safes. If it wasn't for us, people wouldn't have 24 hour access to their money. We sanitize the machine upon our arrival and when we leave the site to make things safer for the next person who uses the machine.

Justin:
I’m a Lab supervisor and we want you to know that we are always here for you and will strive to find a way to keep everyone safe and healthy while we further science in search for a cure.

Noelle:
I’m a daycare provider and my daycare is still open! I want the public to know that we are not glorified babysitters and that our job is important! I know we aren’t as high on the totem pole as healthcare workers or first responders but we are still essential and important!! We risk our lives too because we don’t know where the children go or who they interact with when they’re not at daycare!

Kelsie:
I’m a pharmacist with 3-4 separate roles.
As an educator, moving classes online has been difficult, especially considering that I teach skills labs. Attempting to teach skills to students remotely takes so much more time than it did in the classroom.
As an ambulatory care pharmacist (I help prescribers in a primary care clinic) it’s been a challenge to keep up with the patients that are no longer coming into the building. My major focus is diabetes and I had been seeing most of my patients every 2-3 weeks. Now I haven’t seen most of them in almost two months. I’m hoping they’re doing well but I’m certain that at least a few have backslid and we will effectively need to start over. I also do telehealth visits, but a number of the patients don’t have access to a computer or have never used a program like Zoom or Skype.
I also work at an opioid treatment center and a number of the patients there are the definition of high risk. Because of that, SAMSHA made the recommendation that the patients should receive a LOT more take home doses to keep them out of the public as much as possible. That’s great, but this was a part time, 10-15 hour/week job. Now we are doing 10-15 hours PER DAY just to keep up with the huge influx of work because of this situation.
And that’s not to mention all the individual medication issues because of supply chain difficulties and trying to guide patients through obtaining medications affordably if they’ve been laid off.