In the event of flood or fire…

Providers are being advised to review their risk management procedures, now rather than later.

With floodwaters ravaging many an Australian town, the bushfire season on our doorstep and the two-year anniversary of the Black Saturday tragedy just around the corner, residential aged care providers are being warned to brush up on their knowledge of risk management for emergency events, immediately.

After a spate of severe floods occurring throughout the country in recent weeks, the Bureau of Meteorology is still issuing warnings for areas in the Northern Territory, Victoria, NSW, ACT and Queensland.

The message from the Department of Health and Ageing to residential aged care providers throughout the country is to not be complacent- spend some time revising emergency management preparations.

The Department’s website states: “As an approved provider of Commonwealth subsidised aged care you would know that Accreditation Standard 4.6 (Fire, Security and other Emergencies) requires all aged care services to have emergency management plans and protocols in place to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of care recipients.

“Emergency management plans should be reviewed in advance of the high risk season so that they are up to date and take into consideration a range of emergency events, internal as well as those that can potentially encompass whole communities, such as bushfires, heat waves, cyclones, floods or storm damage.

“…This [advice] is timely as there has recently been wide spread floods and there are forecasts for high temperatures over the coming months, and a heightened risk of other significant emergency events such as severe storms, floods, bushfires or cyclones.”

CEO of Aged and Community Care Victoria (ACCV), Gerard Mansour, said that since the Black Saturday bushfires almost two years ago, providers have done an enormous amount of work to ensure their emergency procedures are up to scratch.

“This is the time to check and revise their emergency procedures and importantly, to set in place strong monitoring systems,” said Mr Mansour. 

“That is key. You can’t assume that somebody is going to pick up the phone and ring you to warn you [about a disaster], so the reality is that you have to set up good systems to monitor and track weather conditions.

“This is also the time to check that staff are aware that staff of the emergency procedures in place.

“In Victoria, this is certainly something we have been promoting over the last year. I am confident that [providers] have these procedures in place but it’s about remembering that there are a variety of disasters.

“It’s just standard management practice that we remind ourselves that, with the nature of the changing environment, things can be more severe.”

Mr Mansour said that the Bureau of Meteorology’s website is one of the important resources that a provider can access. To visit the website, click here.

In case of an emergency, Victorian and New South Wales providers have access to a dedicated emergency response number: aged care services in Victoria can contact 1800 078 709 and aged care services in New South Wales can contact 1800 852 649.
 

Tags: aged-and-community-care-victoria, aged-care, bureau-of-meteorology, community-care,

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