The National Police Agency (NPA) has allocated NT$3.177 million (US$105,703) to fund city and county governments in organizing competitions under the nation’s “Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience” program. The contests cover skills such as applying tourniquets and performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), as well as directing medical units and managing traffic flow in response to contingencies.
The initiative is intended to improve local civil defense units, which had received little guidance or supervision from local governments, with much of the training relying on indoor “static education,” which was outdated, lacking in practical emergency response skills and the rapid delivery of supplies, and on-site traffic control, the the NPA said in a report to the legislature.
Through the competitions, the NPA aims evaluate the quality of training across Taiwan’s civil defense units, including those organized by local police agencies.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
In previous years, similar events were held on a rotating basis by the six special municipalities with central government funding. This year is the first time the contests are being conducted on a national scale.
The competitions would include mandatory tests in CPR, tourniquet application and erecting barriers to manage crowd movement, the agency said, adding that local police agencies might also introduce additional events involving new technologies and specialized equipment tailored to local conditions.
The purpose of the competitions is to “assess the effectiveness of past training courses and the maturity of local units and to test their ability to apply skills in real emergencies,” the agency said. “It is also intended to spur local governments to devote greater attention to civil defense programs.”
As part of the broader Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience initiative, the Ministry of the Interior has also launched a disaster response and relief training program for conscripts and those performing substitute military service.
More than 50,000 reservists were called up last year, and they trained in two main contingency units: the Public Safety Team, overseen by police and firefighting agencies, and the Disaster Response and Protection Team, overseen by the military reserve command, the ministry said.
This year, the ministry plans to expand training with enhanced instruction and specialized skills courses, it said.
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