The COVID-19 outbreak has severely impacted the daily lives of our elderly. Starting early February, Senior Citizen Home Safety Association (‘SCHSA') rolled out a Special Campaign titled "Unite to Fight Virus, Send Love to the Community". The Special Campaign, which has been on-going for almost two months, successfully reached over 20,000 elderly persons in need through distributing nearly 10,000 items of emergency necessity and caring goods including surgical masks, hand sanitizers and more. SCHSA's social workers and registered nurses team also provided almost 900 hours of emotional counselling and healthcare advice to over 10,000 elderly citizens.
The professional team further enhanced its capabilities in delivering healthcare advice and emotional counselling through the Special Campaign, following up on cases with special needs through same-day delivery of hygiene supplies, medical collection service and short-term emotional counselling. SCHSA noticed that cases which need emotional support and handled by social workers have seen a drastic increase of 72% year-on-year and one-third of such cases required further emotional counselling, a 41% rise year-on-year.
Maura Wong, Chief Executive Officer of SCHSA, said, "The elderly have little choice but to stay at home and stop all gatherings and activities during the epidemic, which exacerbated their sense of isolation. News and updates about the outbreak were for them a source of worry and stress. This fragile emotional state presents a crisis that neither the government nor the public at large can afford to ignore. This is why our professional team has taken active intervention measures by checking up on elderly users and following up on their medical appointments and medicine refills. Cases with disabilities, chronic illness or living solitarily are our primary focus."
During this difficult time, SCHSA would like to express our sincere thanks to all individuals and organisation donors, whose help has been essential in ensuring the needy benefit from our service. They include the HKEX Foundation, Virtues Holding Limited and the CW CHU Foundation, the latter of which has graciously rendered support beyond their usual educational scope. At the same time, the art and cultural charity Serendipity has offered much needed mental nourishment for the elderly with caring cards with handwritten personal messages.
On a separate note, SCHSA would like to extend our gratitude to DBS Hong Kong, whose DBS "Care more" initiative allows us to better care for the emotional and physical well-being of the elderly through strengthening professional social workers and registered nurses team, and increasing the Care-on-Call Service by more than 20,000 service sessions.
SCHSA's Special Campaign is a short-term programme that targets our vulnerable elderly. We seek to address their physical and mental needs during this difficult time through Caring Calls, emergency support and special home visits for urgent cases. For more details of the Special Campaign, please visit: https://www.schsa.org.hk/tc/news/index_id_6321.html