Disaster preparation forum for aged care
Are you prepared for a disaster?
Be prepared: Learn about the latest recommendations in resilience-building measures at a forum on Tuesday 11 September 2018 from 10 am – 3 pm at the Arkaba Function Centre, 150 Glen Osmond Road, Fullarton.
This free forum aims to assist residential aged care providers to be better prepared for adverse events such as natural disasters and extreme weather events.
Hosted by Torrens Resilience Institute (TRI), Aged and Community Services Australia and Resthaven, key presenters are Professor Paul Arbon and Dr Malinda Steenkamp from the TRI at Flinders University. Established to improve organisational and community responses to disruptive challenges, TRI aims to be a national and international centre of excellence through the development of advanced thinking in the concept of resilience.
Power outages can cause multiple issues for residential aged care homes and people requiring aged care services.
Resthaven funded research into resilience-building measures in residential aged care settings following South Australia’s “Black system” event in September 2016, when all of the state lost electricity. Acting on the research findings, and in order to maintain a stable power supply and to minimise discomfort and risk to residents, Resthaven has installed power generators at all twelve residential aged care homes.
‘Power outages and their consequences need to be planned for,’ Richard Hearn, Resthaven Chief Executive Officer explains.
‘Although not wanting to overstate the frequency of power outages, aged care services do require contingency planning for such occasions.’
‘Power outages may be caused by a variety of external events, and these may have cascading issues, such as the risk of other essential infrastructure such as communication and transport lines failing,’ Richard explains.
‘We continue to maintain our business continuity plans, and the use of generators is just one element of these.’
‘Since installing generators across all of Resthaven’s aged care homes, they have been called into action on several occasions. They worked seamlessly, so we’re very pleased.’
‘This free seminar is an ideal opportunity for others to learn from our experiences.’
Registration is required for this free event.
To book into the ‘Understanding and Building Resilience to Disasters in Aged Care Settings’ forum, register by emailing tri@flinders.edu.au or telephone 08 7221 8790.