A Study of Networking and Utilization of Resources for Long-Term Care Facilities in Flood Disaster Affected Communities

Abstract

This research targeted five community based long-term care facilities in Tainan and the local chiefs of neighborhood; reference materials are the official disaster precaution data and foreign literature review. This research discusses how these long-term care facilities interact with the community network during flood. The goal is to find out a mode which could connect community organizations and community network under Taiwanese social structure. Taiwan has experienced several periods of community development and movements; the civil power is getting strong. However, the interaction and mutual-aid with long-term care facilities needs further establishment and reinforcement.This research takes various research methods, including interview, on-site observations and analysis of literature. The results and literature review have similar findings about long-term care facilities' relationship with community during flood. Although this issue ought to be emphasized and national disaster precaution system has gone deep into villages, care facilities still face many unsolved issues during disaster, such as uncompleted flood insurance, limits of community's mobilization, and the support of government's administrative order to mutual aid between care facilities. This dissertation is the first part of the 3-year research.Society and Gang-Shan Fire Department (Li & Deng, 2012). The photo of these water-soaking elders in the report raise public's attention to the disaster-dealing abilities of long-term care facilities.The major clients of the long-term care facilities are the elderly and the disabled. In the category of disaster management, these people are defined as "the weak of evacuation" (or "disaster-challenged"). This group may include the elderly, the sick, the young, the disabled, and etc. Due to their difference in psychology, physics and health, they might lack judgement, delay in evacuation, or not be able to evacuate on their own. Therefore, they are in high risk of injury during disasters. Since 1970s, under these two conditions -the welfare countries' finance condition got worse and those who were attended in a more humane way, many care facilities transferred from national size to community one (Popple & Stepney, 2011). There's no exception in Taiwan. Small care facilities in community have grown fast these years in Taiwan where aging people are becoming a large number.In 2011, National Fire Agency, ministry of interior, has put "Disaster precaution for the disaster-challenged" into the training courses for rescue workers. Its purpose is to equip those who make plans for the emergency or look after the elderly or the physically-challenged with the skills and knowledge in disaster handling and resilience (Deng, 2010). In Taiwan, care facilities do disaster precaution practice only to follow the order of the local police or fire department. However, long-term care facilities provide services mainly for the elderly and the disabled. These people in disaster managing work are "the weak in evacuation". These two yea...