Tomorrow the government will formally set up a June 27 blast victims management center that will commence operations right away based on the principle of "one person, one case for long-term care," Vice Premier Chang San-cheng said today while presiding over the fifth meeting of the Executive Yuan task force on the June 27 Formosa Fun Coast Water Park explosion.
Integrating the resources of the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labor and New Taipei City Government, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) will establish a platform for dialogue to resolve issues faced by the blast victims' families and to provide cross-ministerial coordination and assistance in rehabilitation, schooling, employment, welfare and care services as well as legal assistance. The purpose is to help the patients and families undertake lifestyle and social reconstruction and return to their normal lives as soon as possible.
During the meeting, the MOHW and other agencies gave briefings on their respective tasks concerning medical supplies, logistics and care services.
Vice Premier Chang was concerned about issues related to foreign doctors coming to Taiwan, the use of the second reserve fund, and information transparency.
Chang enjoined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and MOHW to assist U.S. and Japanese doctors specializing in burn and scald treatments during their visits to Taiwan to extend medical assistance.
As for the use of the second reserve fund, the vice premier tasked the MOHW to oversee related details and activate the fund in accordance with due process. In particular, incentives and allowances for overworked medical and nursing personnel must be disbursed, and the MOHW must speedily establish a standard for their allocation.
The Executive Yuan stated that the MOHW and other related agencies have already established different work groups with short-, medium- and long-term objectives regarding subsequent care of the burn victims.
For example, the medical supplies and logistics group will in the short term ensure ample medical equipment and supplies for fully stabilizing and treating patients, coordinate demand for referrals and allocate additional medical and nursing personnel. The group's medium-term goals are to establish a model for post-care services and provide community hospitals with rehabilitation and care services, while its foremost long-term goal is to assist patients to return to their normal lives.
Meanwhile, the care service group will in the short term visit patients and families to provide needed services. Its medium-term objective is to help the patients and families pass through the stages of medical treatment, rehabilitation and reconstruction. In the long term it hopes to assist each individual patient in rehabilitation, enhance patients' family members' care capabilities, help reduce their care burden, assist patients to return to society, and carry out a "hand-in-hand accompaniment program" to help injured students return to school as soon as possible.
The MOHW stated that the June 27 burns and scalds management center will open tomorrow (July 14) at 9 a.m. on the sixth floor of the New Taipei City Hospital's Banciao Branch.
The center has its own short-, medium- and long-term plans to assist with patients' medical care. In the short term, lasting three months, it will focus mainly on speedily assessing needs and intervening early to provide assistance and referrals, integrating resources and properly allocating tasks while setting up a two-way communication platform, providing individual patients and families with psychological care and support services, and delivering educational training and respite care services for family caretakers.
In the medium term, extending from three months to one year, the center will establish various kinds of services in order to satisfy the unique needs of each individual, strengthen psychological health to prevent post-traumatic stress disorder, integrate resources for proper division of labor to raise efficiency, and provide continuous care to enhance patients' relevant cognitive capabilities in various fields.
In the long term, lasting two to three years, the center will help burn victims recover their vocational capabilities and form self-help groups. It will also provide employment consultations and assistance.
The MOHW stated that through the management model of "one person, one case" and related services from hospitals and regional public social workers, it hopes to help in- and out-patients rehabilitate to achieve the goal of returning to society.
The June 27 blast victims management center's service hotline is 02-2257-0627.