Multicultural access to primary health care

CHN has recently funded 2 projects that will work to improve awareness, understanding and navigation of primary health services for Canberra’s multicultural community members. The funding is part of the Australian Government’s Multicultural Access Program. Primary health services means care you receive in the community, not in a hospital, from GPs, nurses and allied health professionals.

The projects draw on findings from the ACT Multicultural Primary Health Care Needs Assessment completed in 2024.CHN worked with Health Care Consumers Association of the ACT and the Multicultural Hub, Canberra, to understand more about the primary health needs of Canberra’s multicultural communities. You can read more about the Multicultural Primary Care Needs Assessment here.

Multicultural community members in Canberra reported these challenges:

• Long wait times for GP and other specialist appointments.
• Financial challenges due to low rates of bulk billed care in the ACT.
• Financial challenges experienced by temporary migrants due to different services being available through Medicare compared to private health insurance.
• People who are new to the ACT or Australia reported difficulty knowing which health care service they needed and where to find the service.
• Communication issues for people with low English language skills, and low access to high quality interpreter services.
• Challenges receiving health care services that are sensitive to people’s cultural differences.

Because of these challenges, multicultural community members sometimes don’t get the primary health care they need, and these community members can also feel isolated.

CHN wants to hear your views on multicultural community access to primary health care in Canberra!