Busan City Activates Double Protection Measures for Elderly Job Participants Against Heatwaves and Fires

[Financial News] Busan City announced on the 15th that it will implement special measures to respond to heatwaves to prevent safety accidents and protect the health of elderly job participants as record-breaking heatwaves are forecasted this summer.
The main measures include training field safety managers for 'Team Leader Seniors' in the elderly job program, operating a day for intensive field safety inspections, adjusting activity times and locations according to heatwave stages, providing safety supplies for heatwave preparation, focusing on managing heat illness risk groups, and distributing fire extinguisher stickers for outlets in apartments without sprinklers. 
Team Leader Seniors, who play a leadership role among participants, will be designated as field safety managers, and from the 17th, field safety manager training will be conducted in cooperation with the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency and Inje University Busan Paik Hospital, rotating through 16 districts for a month.
To enable Team Leader Seniors to act as responsible parties for preventing safety accidents on site, the training includes field-oriented education covering theory to practical exercises such as CPR and emergency first aid.
Since the 14th, districts and implementing agencies have been intensively inspecting 296 job sites, adjusting activity times according to perceived temperature, or switching to remote education if certain criteria are exceeded to strengthen field response.
To protect participants' health, all 63,000 participants will receive safety supplies such as cooling scarves for heatwave preparation within this month.
For high-risk groups prone to heat illness accidents due to age or underlying health conditions, elderly job implementing agencies will conduct continuous health checks through individual calls or visits for focused management.
Finally, a policy linking the elderly job program with residential safety policies will be implemented for the first time nationwide by local governments.
The city plans to distribute a total of 1,500 sets of fire extinguisher stickers for outlets, worth 15 million won, to households of participants living in apartments without sprinklers in collaboration with the city's Fire and Disaster Headquarters.
The fire extinguisher sticker is a product that automatically activates at around 170℃ when an outlet overheats, spraying extinguishing agents to immediately suppress initial fires. It operates independently without a separate power source or activation process when a fire occurs.
Jung Tae-gi, Director of Social Welfare Bureau, stated, “This heatwave measure is significant as it provides a multi-layered protection plan for elderly job participants from the field to their homes, being the first of its kind by local governments nationwide.” 

bsk730@fnnews.com Kwon Byung-seok Reporter