Social Workers Involved in the Aid of the SARS's Outbreak in Taiwan
With the worst of the global SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in last spring and summer of 2003. A 54-year-old businessman landed in a Taipei hospital on March 8, the first probable case in Taiwan, infected after a visit to Guangdong in late February. The rapid rise of Sars cases was in May, e. g., on May 8 the WHO advised against non-essential travel to Taipei, and extended the advisory on May 21 to cover all of Taiwan after Sars broke out at several hospitals in southern Taiwan. On July 5, Taiwan was the last to be taken off the WHO's list of Sars-hit areas. It has had 346 Sars cases and 73 deaths. In the case of great effort with SARS outbreaks, Taiwanese social workers, as medical professionals, working in the hospitals and public units, they have been much involved in working with the victims in the first lines. Based on the second data analysis, found that for Social workers from the local Governments have been deep working with homeless people such as in checking the identification, sending them meal, providing them with surgical masks and taking their temperature in an attempt to prevent them from being infected with the SARS virus, and taking them to the specific isolated areas. As well as, social workers were working with probable persons and the victims’ families, such as delivering cash disbursements, helping in conducting funerals for the dead, disease prevention information providing, and providing direct services for the probable and suspected persons who were isolated in their own homes-home visit, free meal delivering, hotline counseling and emotional support, being an accompany and transportation arrangement to the hospital examination, collecting and distributing food and supplies, out-of-home placement for the dependent children, disabled, elderly, and etc. In order to have more structure data on how the social workers was involved and faced with the probable cases in the forefront, how they needed to protect their families away from infected by themselves, how they are going to admit the new cases in new Spring and Summer, a further standardized survey will be delivered to collect the social workers’ primary data.