Forward Twp. man helps set up COVID field hospital
A local man has left home more than ever to respond to greater needs.
“You've got COVID, and then you've got mother nature,” said Mel Musulin of Forward Township. “We also have hurricanes coming. They're about to hit too, so you have to be ready for that.”
Musulin serves as a logistics specialist for the National Disaster Medical Service team Pennsylvania 1, which falls under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Similar to those who serve in the National Guard and other aid agencies, Musulin gets deployed during a catastrophe. He said in the past he would be deployed about once every two years.
“I've been out five times in a year and a half,” he said.
Musulin is in Mississippi, where he leads the logistics-side of setting up a 20-bed field hospital in the basement floor of a parking garage at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Musulin said the added unit is in response to an overwhelming presence of COVID-19 in the region. He said the field hospital will handle antibody infusions for people early in their infections, so they may avoid being hospitalized.“People need to wear their masks, and they need to get their vaccines,” Musulin said. “That's what it amounts to.”According to Jamie Musulin, Mel's wife, her husband makes her proud every time he answers the call to help others.“I'm happy he's had an opportunity to fulfill some of these needs,” she said. “He gets enjoyment out of it and feels satisfaction. You can't get any better than that.”Musulin's work has taken him around the country and to different parts of the world, and each time he has to leave behind his family, work and life back home.The National Disaster Medical Service falls under the supervision of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, which is overseen by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.Federally funded, its intermittent employees received protections from the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which allowed Musulin to leave his day job as a paramedic for his deployments. Musulin has since retired as a full-time paramdeic, but his work with the National Disaster Medical Service has continued.The same act protects members of the National Guard, who are deployed, but according to Musulin, the protection it affords to service members isn't the only support needed.Musulin said he always appreciated his colleagues who would cover for him while he would be away. While no longer working full-time, he still has people to appreciate for filling his responsibilities, such as his fellow supervisors on the township board which he serves.He said at home, his wife has given him great support.“It's a team effort,” he said. “Even the employers that people leave, the other employees have to pick up the slack.”
Jamie Musulin said it helps that she's always been a fairly independent person; however, not all families are so lucky.“Recognizing the needs of the family members of those who are first responders in general is an important issue that I don't think gets enough attention,” she said.The allowances of employers and support at home helps get specialists such as Mel Musulin across the country to places with the highest need. Musulin said he specializes in communication, but he can and has taken leadership roles in the past.Musulin's first deployment was in the wake of Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and he has since also been to Haiti and responded to the southern United States during Hurricane Katrina.“All of us see this as a privilege to show the charity of the American people,” Musulin said. “That's who we represent.”Jamie Musulin said she also believes that the calling is worth the sacrifice of her husband's time with his family. She said he's helping a greater community, and he always brings home great stories and perspectives.“I would say, he's a highly trained professional with a great deal of passion, as are most first responders,” she said. “Doctors, nurses, police, EMS: there's something in their DNA that make them very dedicated.”
COVID-19 has created change in the frequency and consistency of the service's need, according to Musulin.“We have to provide for their food and medicine. It's kind of a different operation,” Musulin said. “Normally, we deal with people with broken bones, cuts and people with chronic disease, aggravated by a disaster situation.”Musulin said, on average, a deployment used to be about two weeks. Now with COVID-19, that time could be as long as a month.Musulin said at one point, he was deployed for about a month, working in Detroit to convert a convention center into a 1,000-bed facility. He said the Army Corps of Engineers handled the brunt of that operation, but the disaster service helped with technical assistance.Musulin said he's afraid COVID-19 could reach new levels again, and even though he hopes he doesn't have to be deployed again, he is prepared to help those in need.“This delta stuff is bad. It's really easy to get,” said Musulin. “I'm about 75% sure this will not be my last COVID call.”For Jamie Musulin, she hopes people will start to conduct better research related to actual science and less informed by social media.“It doesn't bother me that he has to go out,” she said. “It bothers me that misinformation has perpetuated like a wildfire.”
