Transcript

Music

Narrator:
Good health is an important part of successful settlement for refugees.

Woman:
The Refugee Health Service is a state wide service. We offer a variety of services for newly arrived and longer settled refugees including clinical services, advocacy, research and education.

Girl:
I’ve got an appointment with Dr Shelby.

Woman:
No problem.

Woman:
Australia has got one of the best health systems in the world bar none particularly because of our universal access under Medicare. However, it is confusing and it can be very different to health systems overseas.

Woman:
Your country of birth, please.

Girl:
Iraq.

Woman:
Language spoken at home?

Girl:
Arabic.

Woman:
Explaining the immunisation schedule and the issues around immunising children before they go to school; explaining how to access the public dental system...

Music

Woman:
The Refugee Health Nurse Program operates in Sydney, we run eleven clinics from St George out to the Blue Mountains. We have a very close working relation with the Settlement Services International which is the service provider for newly arrived refugees coming into Sydney. They refer all their on-arrival clients to the Refugee Health Nurse Program. And we commit to seeing them in our clinics within one to two weeks of arrival.

Music

Woman:
We do a physical health assessment, a psychological health assessment, a dental health assessment because health is more than just a medical assessment. Also, we’re able to link newly arrived refugees into the myriad of services that NSW Health provides. All the under fives we send to our Early Childhood Nursing Services because they’re the experts around child development. And there’s often a lot of concern from parents about the effect of the refugee journey may have had on their children.

Music

Woman:
The other issue is around people’s psychological health. And for a lot of refugees they have experienced things that you and I could only imagine or something we only may see on television. So, how people recover from that trauma, particularly people that may have experienced quite severe physical torture, is really important for their onward settlement journey into Australia. So, we want to make sure that people are in the best possible state of health to start their new life in Australia.