There are thousands of reasons this year’s NSW Multicultural Health Week was launched at Liverpool Hospital yesterday.
Between 2012 and 2016 the great south west welcomed more than 10,000 refugees and people entering Australia on humanitarian grounds – about half of the NSW humanitarian and refugee intake.
To cater for the region’s culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, South Western Sydney Local Health District offers language services in 87 languages.
The interpreting team has about 55 accredited staff and more than 200 contracted interpreters.
Amanda Larkin, the chief executive of the District, said south western Sydney was the heart of multicultural Australia and a most appropriate location to open the awareness week.
“Around 45 per cent of the south western Sydney population was born overseas and more than 50 per cent speak a language other than English at home,’’ Ms Larkin said.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“Our residents from so many cultural backgrounds bring colour, energy, passion and talent to our great south west.[/social_quote]
“However they also need our support as they embrace the challenge of settling into a new country.
“The theme of the 2018 Multicultural Health Week is health literacy with the tagline Talk, Listen, Ask – for better health is very important in our culturally and linguistically diverse communities.”
The NSW Government is investing more than $2.2 million in multicultural health care in south western Sydney in 2018-19.
Ms Larkin said the Health District was looking forward to launching its cultural competency training for staff to increase their capacity to work effectively with the region’s multicultural groups during the awareness week.
“We are committed to improving health literacy across our CALD communities in the region and our new competency training will help us to achieve this aim,’’ Ms Larkin said.
“In addition the District offers a range of services through our Multicultural Health Unit to support equitable access to healthcare for people from CALD communities.’’
Some of these programs include:
- Quit and Fit, a Vietnamese Tobacco Project
- Arabic Healthy Living Project
- CALD Stepping On program
- Bilingual Community Education Program.
The District is also home to the NSW Refugee Health Service, which supports the health and wellbeing of people from refugee backgrounds.
For more information on Multicultural Health Week, go to: www.multiculturalhealthweek.com
