workforce
So we had two events we were dealing with that affected our services across about 700 kilometres. Some of the questions we always ask about impact are things like will the building be safe? Will everybody be safe?
How were communications affected? Normally in a cyclone, we will lose landlines and mobiles. In this case, just prior to the cyclone crossing the coast we had communication into the facility the entire time. That’ s quite different and something that we hadn’ t gone through in the past. Some of the other questions we ask are:‘ What do we do if we need to transfer someone to hospital during the event?’ and – something none of us likes to consider –‘ What if we’ ve got a resident who’ s palliating and dies during the event and you expect the event to go for about four days?’
The impact to the community is quite different [ from what happens to the facility ]. From the home-care perspective, we identify our vulnerable clients we’ re currently providing services, work out whether they need a phone call and whether we can do a visit before the [ storm hits ]. Then, we make sure clients have a radio and a torch with batteries. [ Often, contacting these clients has an impact beyond just technical assurance.] I’ d like to give you an example. We had a lady who we’ d identified as vulnerable. Her home manager was making regular contact [ with ] her to check she was OK. As one day became two days, the batteries in her torch and radio started to wane and because the power was off her fridge started to stink. But her main concern was that she was just lonely.
All she wanted was a conversation with someone, because she lived on an isolated property. We knew our local networks and were able to tap into the local Red Cross. They were able to over from us [ with her ] because we were dealing with many other vulnerable clients to decrease her loneliness by putting in a number of phone calls. Those are the personal things you need to remember.
What was the impact on residential services? Our residential service is a two-storey building and we knew the top floor was particularly vulnerable – it’ s near the ocean. We knew the top area would be vulnerable because it faces the sea and there were double windows. We made a decision to move the 60 residents from the upper floor to the lower floor.
In the lower floor we already had over 40 at the time, so we now had over 100 residents in an area normally designed for 60. We had beds lined up in the corridor. In every nook and cranny there was a bed.
[ Even if ] you’ ve been in that environment [ and felt ] the impact, it’ s quite hard to describe. Winds are lashing your windows at over 200kmh. The trees are flapping constantly and the noise is intense. That was quite frightening for the entire facility. So communications [ were ] a pivotal point for us because [ they could help us ] try to keep that sense of calm.
It’ s important to make regular contact with families to keep them updated.
You also need to have regular communications with the department of health to ensure them that everything is secure. They can also be a resource, in terms of finding beds, if you need to evacuate. As a medium-sized provider, we have plans in place. In this situation, because [ we were facing ] multiple weather events, we ran multi-functional teams, so we had one group looking across the areas affected at hotel services, property, relief of staff at communications, information technology, phones – all of those sort of things.
We also put beds on hold right across the state, because part of our plan is to be ready for the worst. If you plan for the worst event and you have beds on hold, then it’ s not so difficult to manage it should that occur. [ We had learned that particular lesson ] a number of years ago at our residential facility at Bundaberg, where we certainly didn’ t expect to be inundated with water and uninhabitable for 10 months. We [ suddenly ] needed to find interim homes for 101 people. We had some plans in place but to enact that at the time was quite difficult.
How did you manage the inevitable staff fatigue? Having co-ordinated [ during ] a number of disasters now, it never ceases to amaze me how staff forgive everything, forsake everything and go into our facilities and stay for the full length of the natural event, which can sometimes be three or four days.
Staff go into the facility not knowing if they’ ll have a home to go to at the end of a cyclone. I continue to be proud of the staff who do that and commit to resident safety. In this situation, some staff asked if they bring their family and we made the decision to allow that because we had some people who lived in isolated areas or had houses that weren’ t category 5 rated.
We made the decision to bring them in, obviously with some rules. The more you can do to support staff, the more they’ ll keep doing what they do for residents.
Staff do become fatigued, particularly at a management level. [ During cyclone Marcia ], management had been standing upright and making decisions in incredibly stressful situations for upwards of 72 hours. Our plans [ take this into account ] and we have a relief team ready to go. In this situation, we deployed some senior maintenance officers because we knew we had some damage to the facility. It wasn’ t significant damage but we did have some.
We sent some senior nurses in on the first available plane, once we could get across some of the low-lying areas.
We did things such as making sure we ceased [ certain ] services well and truly before the event came, and ensuring that vulnerable clients in home care were identified and staff were safely off the road. For the residential facilities, [ we made sure the site ] was as safe as possible.
My message to others is [ to remember ] you sometimes can’ t do it alone. Reach out to the rest of your local aged-care network, disaster management groups and, if need be, the department of health. My experience is that the aged-care industry will open up its doors to help you and we particularly saw this in Bundaberg. There was never this issue of‘ I work for this organisation and I shouldn’ t be talking to you’. Everybody in this industry is here primarily for residents; they will assist you. Have a plan and be ready to deploy … Be prepared to be flexible to adapt your plan and work on the run, but also to sit back at the end of the event and analyse what went well. Things never go perfectly. There are always some lessons learned and we continue as an organisation to find minor improvements.
What are the other key lessons you hope people can garner from your experience? Never stop learning. These events are hard work. I did the co-ordination of this one at our support centre. I also did the co-ordination of the one in Bundaberg, and they are exhausting events. So I’ d say remain focused on your primary goal: keeping everybody safe.
If you stay focused on residents and your staff, minor things may happen, you may get minor structural damage, but you’ ll get through it in the end with a team approach. ■ agedcareinsite. com. au 33