Preparing aged care for disaster

A local Queensland council has taken steps to help aged care facilities and rural communities prepare for natural disasters.

In preparation, Mackay Regional Council has employed a community resilience officer who will work to improve communication between the council and community groups over the next two years.

The community resilience officer was employed using State government disaster money and the Mackay Daily Mercury newspaper reports the officer has been working in the community for the past month, with aged care providers in preparation for the wet season, which has the likelihood of bringing floods and cyclones to the region.

Described as a “great asset” to the council, Mackay Regional Council director of engineering services, Stuart Holley, tells DPS eNews the officer will help to “improve [council’s] preparedness, which is vital after the devastating floods and cyclones experienced by the state over the past few years.

“The officer will improve and increase aged care facilities’ awareness of disasters, and manage and plan how they recover after disasters,” Mr Holley says. “Which has been quite significant the over the years, with tropical cyclone Yasi being the latest to hit the state earlier this year.

“We need to work with the community to give them the ability to understand how to prepare themselves better – and this community includes individuals with disabilities and aged care groups… groups that are in a position where they need support,” he adds.

Mr Holley says one thing which council identified as Yasi in January hit was a number of privately run aged care facilities did not necessarily have effective and “workable” evacuation or disaster plans.

“If we have cyclones come in where a number of elderly care centres are in storm surge areas they are likely to have to be evacuated. One of things we want to be able to do is that those particular organisations need to be self-reliant in the middle of an event,” Mr Holley says. “We don’t want to have to deal with 80 elderly people in various needs of care in trouble when we can be attending to other people in crisis,” he adds.

According to Mr Holley, the idea is to create management plans and council is assisting each of the special needs groups by providing advice to these facilities.

The council’s community resilience project is a two year program which received funding over two years. It is part of a pilot study that has been developed to understand the emergency management of Queensland councils.

National Seniors Australia, a consumer lobby group for older Australians, last week revealed some of the most vulnerable members of the community could be left without basic services if Australia suffered another “summer of wild weather”.

According to National Seniors, flooding in both Queensland and Victoria last summer forced the evacuation of aged care and nursing homes in both Victoria and Queensland, with reports that some elderly residents were “left without easy access to toilets and showers, and had to sleep on inflatable beds”.

National Seniors chief executive, Michael O’Neil, says more work is needed to ensure aged care facilities “cope as quickly and smoothly as possible in dealing with emergency evacuations”.

“We need to ensure staff in aged care facilities are well trained to carry out evacuations for, either the elderly residents, or their local communities,” Mr O’Neil says.

“The federal government could also help these communities by funding the training of elderly residents who are willing and able to help in emergencies, alongside the local SES (State Emergency Service) personnel and emergency services.

“The elderly are some of the most vulnerable in our society and need to have first priority at times such as these,” he says.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology briefed Queensland Cabinet last week for the coming wet season, stating the Queensland is likely to experience above average rainfall, high bushfire danger and at least four cyclones.