Taoyuan government courses to lift caregivers’ skills

The Department of Labor in Taoyuan is launching a series of courses and services between May and June this year aimed at promoting foreign domestic caregivers’ nursing skills and communication.

Despite the fact that most of the foreign domestic caregivers have been given home nursing skills prior their arrival to Taiwan, their patient’s experience of care was often discounted due to language barriers, the United Daily News reported.

In addition, short courses on nursing skills such as feeding, nasogastric tube management and care and language courses on local Taiwanese and Hakka Chinese were given last year by Taiwanese registered nurses, caregivers and interpreters in hospitals, clinics and community centers.

An Indonesian participant from last year spoke of how she benefited from the language course as she could better understand her elderly employer, who speaks only Hakka Chinese.