Employers of foreign domestic caregivers to older people should create standard operating procedures to deal with emergencies, a senior social worker said yesterday.
Huang Kuan-ping (黃冠評), a senior social worker and director of Fuhua Nursing Service Center in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山), told the Taipei City Migrant Workers’ Family Care Project’s online workshop that foreign caregivers should have a system to handle crises.
An estimated 291,961 people aged 65 or older are living with dementia, accounting for about 7.71 percent of the older population, the Taipei Department of Labor said, citing last year’s demographic data from the Ministry of the Interior.
The data suggests that about one in 12 older people, and one in five people aged 80 or older, live with dementia, it said.
The Taipei Migrant Workers’ Family Care Project — commissioned by the Taipei Foreign and Disabled Labor Office, the Jian Shun Senior Day Care Center and the Taiwan Association of Family Caregivers — said that the two most common illnesses that its care recipients have are hypertension (32.8 percent) and dementia (31.9 percent).
Huang said that foreign domestic workers should practice the “five dos and three do nots” of caregiving.
The “five dos” are “smiling, speaking at eye level, speaking with a comforting tone of voice, asking for agreement and obtaining understanding,” while the “three do nots” are “do not scare, do not force and do not fear,” he said.
As an example, Huang said that older people who do not like taking a bath might feel attacked if a caregiver forces them to undress, so the caregiver should try to negotiate with them, slowly and calmly, using the “five dos and three do nots.”
He said that employers of foreign domestic workers should create a standard operating procedure for handling emergency situations when taking care of older people.
These guidelines should address dealing with common accidents including when a client falls down, is lost, or an emergency injury or illness occurs, he added.
As many foreign domestic caregivers are left alone to care for older people, their employers should teach them how to clearly describe a crisis — such as providing who, what, where and when information — should an emergency occur.
Taiwan Association of Family Caregivers secretary-general Chen Ching-ning (陳景寧) said that standard operating procedures should outline what types of situations to consider an emergency and who the caregiver should call, and should be posted at home so that caregivers can be prepared to immediately act according to the procedure.
The online workshop was organized to share tips with foreign domestic workers and their employers, and addressed that the workers might have to overcome language barriers, have insufficient knowledge about illnesses or lack the skills to handle sudden incidents, such as a client falling down or becoming lost.
