ENG-2003 — Page 240

SOCIAL WELFARE

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Combating the SARS Outbreak

The department participated actively and extensively in various aspects of work in combating the SARS outbreak, ranging from promoting environmental hygiene in welfare services units to offering assistance to individuals and families directly affected.

Guidelines to promote environmental hygiene and to advise on contingency arrangements in case of an infection were drawn up and distributed to residential social services. As part of the precautionary measures against SARS, face masks were distributed to vulnerable groups, through services units. With a special funding allocation, resources were utilised to assist elderly day service units, residential care homes for elders and persons with disabilities, drug treatment centres as well as child care centres in taking measures to prevent the spread of SARS, and to improve environmental hygiene.

Operation CARE was among the initiatives taken by the Administration to relieve the impact of SARS on the economy through the creation of temporary jobs while strengthening social cohesiveness and fostering a spirit of mutual care within the community. This project aimed at improving the general household environment of elders and other vulnerable groups so as to boost their resistance against contagious diseases by having their homes cleansed, and minor household repairs done, by a force of mainly young workers engaged on a short-term basis. Some 4500 job opportunities were created for this task. A total of 42 NGOs, local bodies and labour federations, comprising 73 units, were commissioned to take part in the operation. Over 150 000 elders and vulnerable groups benefited from the household cleansing service, and over 70 000 elders and vulnerable families-in-need received the household repairs service.

In addition, assistance and support in the form of counselling and urgent financial assistance were rendered by social workers and clinical psychologists to SARS patients and their families. The department also provided transitional residential placements for children and elders without adequate support upon hospitalisation of their care-givers and temporary accommodation for discharged SARS patients who could not return home immediately.

The department also oversaw the provision of both tangible and psychosocial support to people placed under confinement in their own homes or in the holiday camps designated as isolation centres. The wide range of support rendered by the departinent and some NGOs included delivery of meals, provision of daily necessities, arrangements for child care, emergency financial assistance, and psychological support/intervention through hotlines. The department was designated to administer a $150 million Trust Fund for SARS which the Government established in November to provide special ex gratia assistance on compassionate grounds for individuals or families affected by the unprecedented outbreak between March and June. Besides providing special ex gratia relief payment for eligible families of deceased Sars patients, the Trust Fund also provides special ex gratia financial assistance for eligible recovered SARS patients or eligible 'suspected' SARS patients treated with steroids who are suffering from longer term effects, attributable to SARS (including the effects of medication received), which might have resulted in some degree of relevant dysfunction. By year-end, a total of 188 applications had been approved, involving $64.6 million. The department has also been entrusted to administer two non- government funds, namely the 'Business Community Relief Fund for Victims of

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