Report on – 33rd IC Resolution 3: Time to act: Tackling epidemics and pandemics together (33IC/19/R3) – Australian Red Cross

Has your State/National Society/Institution incorporated the commitments contained in this resolution into the relevant strategic or operational plans?

The commitments are incorporated into:
Strategy
Policy
Operational plan

At the Regional, National, Local level

Explanation:

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken by the public authorities in Australia in response accelerated the adoption by Australian Red Cross of several measures foreseen by Resolution 3. These measures have strengthened Australian Red Cross’ capabilities to deliver relevant programming, to protect our staff and volunteers, and to ensure business continuity during periods of significant disruption, including challenges caused by epidemics and pandemics. Australian Red Cross has created a COVID-19 Safety Pack to ensure the safety of our workforce during emergency response and recovery activities, including emergencies concurrent to pandemics. This includes: • A new comprehensive Emergency Services (ES) Safety page on the Australian Red Cross intranet • Guidelines on ES Safety Functions, Roles and Responsibilities • ES COVID-19 Safety Responsibilities • Suite of COVID-19 Safety guidelines, tools and resources (including ES PPE Guide During COVID-19) • COVID-19 Safety Activation and Demobilisation checklists • Updated incident and hazard reporting guidelines • Formalised Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) escalation process • Safety Advisor e-learning module Beyond response and recovery, COVID safety plans were developed to help protect staff and volunteers as well as people accessing our services. These plans were developed to reflect the obligations and the advice provided by the public authorities. Within the federal system in Australia, health and emergency services are largely within the purview of the state and territory governments. This meant different plans were put in place in each division of Australian Red Cross, as rules in each state and territory reflected different case numbers, health system capacities and priorities. Australian Red Cross has, however, adopted a national vaccination policy, following extensive consultation across the organisation. The onset of the pandemic also prompted Australian Red Cross to update business continuity plans for back-office functions to account for the specific implications of “stay at home” orders. In general, existing in-house systems for functions such as IT support and training were adapted to meet the needs of staff and volunteers arising from pandemic, rather than implementing new systems. After undertaking a review of its international program model in 2018, Australian Red Cross narrowed its health strategic priorities to exclusively focus on the areas of ‘Emergency Health and WASH’ and ‘Epidemics and pandemic preparedness’. The focus on epidemic and pandemic preparedness responds to the high burden of infectious diseases in the region, and the heightened threat of emerging (and re-emerging) infectious diseases posed by natural hazards, climate change, urbanization, high rates of mobility and the secondary health impacts (on surveillance and health systems) of Covid-19.

Has your State/National Society/Institution been working with other partners to implement the commitments contained in this resolution?

Partner with:
Government and/or public authorities
ICRC/IFRC
Other National Red Cross or Red Crescent Societies
Humanitarian and development partners (e.g. UN, NGOs etc.)

Examples of cooperation:

Through support from federal and state governments, Australian Red Cross has delivered a range of services throughout the course of the pandemic. This has included the delivery of food and essential items to people isolating at home and kits of materials to returning travellers in hotel quarantine. Australian Red Cross rapidly stood up volunteer teams to provide daily wellbeing calls to people isolating or in quarantine. Australian Red Cross has provided cash and food parcels to migrants experiencing vulnerability including those in insecure visa circumstances and provided case work and referral services. In order to continue to deliver existing and new humanitarian services over the course of the pandemic, Australian Red Cross worked closely with the Federal Government in order to ensure that government payments made available to businesses to avoid job losses were extended to charitable organisations. Consultation with state and territory governments was necessary in order to extend to Australian Red Cross personnel, exemptions from stay at home orders and travel restrictions so that they could carry out support services for people made vulnerable through isolation and other impacts of the pandemic that could not be delivered remotely. Australian Red Cross partners with IFRC and 9 National Societies in the Asia-Pacific region to strengthen National Society capacity to effectively prevent, detect and respond to infectious disease threats – including strengthening community-based surveillance and raising awareness of the unique role local Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers can play in epidemic control. This is in line with the 2018 commitment from IFRC and Asia Pacific national societies to “Work in partnership with communities and other organisations to prepare for, prevent, and respond to outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics at a local level” and the Manila Declaration target that “At least 50% of national societies introduce community-based surveillance systems”. In recent years, Australian Red Cross has worked closely with IFRC to support our regional partners. Support has included contextualisation of established tools such as the Epidemic Control for Volunteers (ECV) toolkit and the Community Based Surveillance (CBS) approach, development of related training packages that can be used by national societies to independently deliver ECV and CBS training, and technical and financial support for related programming. We engage in shaping Movement policy and practice in this area of work, through ongoing participation in global and regional technical working groups, building strategic partnerships, and ongoing reflective practice to strengthen the evidence-base for quality responses to the increasingly complex infectious disease threats facing Asia Pacific.

Have you encountered any challenges in implementing the commitments contained in this resolution?

Details about challenges:

We encountered a number of issues with our domestic programming in responding to the COVID pandemic. This included: • The age profile of our volunteer base. Many of our volunteers are within the older age group that is most susceptible to serious health outcomes arising from COVID-19. • Internal communication – not being able to have “town hall” or other face to face meetings to inform volunteers and staff was a challenge. • Arranging exemptions from health orders for Australian Red Cross to deliver aid. • Investing in technology and building the capacity of the workforce in order to facilitate remote working very quickly. In particular, security issues such as the taking of credit card payments required significant attention in order to remain compliant with Australian law. • The differentiation in the responses from the various state and territory governments presented a challenge for management at a national level, as we have been focussing up to now on harmonising processes.

Have the commitments contained in this resolution had an impact on the work and direction of your State/National Society/Institution?

Details about the impact:

Whilst it is not clear what progress would have been made absent COVID-19, the sudden onset of the pandemic has accelerated Australian Red Cross’ adoption of better technology to facilitate hybrid working, tested our ability to rapidly stand-up new services, adapt existing services and recognise new vulnerabilities and advocate for humanitarian outcomes. We have worked closely with public authorities and civil society partners to respond to needs that have arisen.

Have the commitments contained in this resolution had an impact on the communities that your State/National Society/Institution serves?

Description of the impact:

Australian Red Cross has contributed responded domestically to the material and psychosocial needs of people made vulnerable or whose vulnerabilities have been compounded by COVID-19. Our support to our partner National Societies in the Asia-Pacific meanwhile, has helped them to prepare and respond to both the pandemic, and to other emergencies occurring during the pandemic.