TRANSCRIPT
Australia's older population is growing year-by-year and becoming more culturally and linguistically diverse than ever.
And with this changing demographic has come a need to adapt Australia's aged-care and palliative care services.
According to the 2016 Australian Bureau of Statistics Census, 37 per cent of older Australians were born overseas, or 1.2 million people, and one in six older Australians speak a language other than English at home.
Palliative Care Victoria CEO Violet Platt says different cultural attitudes to aging, sickness and death has prompted them to adapt their care model to a number of cultural perspectives.
"We all come from such different backgrounds and our culture and our spiritual beliefs really impact on how we approach getting older. Some people use different language or choose to experience pain, that it's their belief that it's God's will, that they have pain and don't necessarily report pain or have quite a stoic approach and their face doesn't demonstrate pain. "
Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients with advanced and often life-threatening illness.
Ms Platt says it’s important to educate those who may carry stigma or fear associated with palliative care.
"There's such a fear of what the words mean and many people think that if you are referred to palliative care or palliative care's mentioned that you're imminently dying. You can have palliative care from very early in your illness journey and live the best life that you can. It doesn't mean that death or dying is imminent and those words, some cultures don't even say or don't want to acknowledge."
With a rapidly growing older population in Australia, this task of personalised care is becoming no easy feat.
Current data says that by 2026 more than 22 per cent of Australians will be aged over 65 which is up from 16 per cent in 2020.
Back at the start of the 1970s, it sat at just 8.3 per cent.
Ms Platt says, regardless, their priority is to provide services in a culturally-sensitive, patient-led approach.
"We do have people from culturally diverse backgrounds in more English speaking aged care facilities, but volunteers coming in who can speak in language workers, who can speak in language family or community members or members of the church coming in and visiting and bringing food that they know the person will enjoy, taking them on visits with community or bringing religious service or ceremony to them. There's still lots of ways that we can integrate and support the individual."
Palliative Care Victoria’s new project, the Dignified and Respectful Decisions program is offering language-specific resources to ensure that family members and substitute decision-makers can access information and support to assist them as carers.
The booklet, which is being translated into 10 different languages including Greek, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Arabic and Serbian, will empower them to advocate better on behalf of their loved ones.
Tonina Gucciardo-Masci, Community Engagement Manager for the organisation, says it's important that families are able to make informed decisions regarding the care of their loved ones.
"Making sure that we develop resources that are community tested, that are co-designed with community, and it's all in the way of ensuring that the people are well-informed, as well-informed as possible, about the services that are available to them and that they can make informed choices about their care along the whole journey."
Kris Pavlidis cared for her 89-year-old mother Efstathia for eight years after she was diagnosed with vascular dementia caused by a series of strokes.
After a number of incidents, Kris decided that her mother needed round-the-clock care at a dedicated facility.
"The last kind of episode was I was leaving the front door of my house and I heard the smoke alarm, and it was so loud that I reopened my door. I thought it was my smoke alarm. I realized, no, gosh, it must be my mother. So I said, 'what's happened?' I go to the front door and I could see all the smoke around the kitchen area. So she'd had a little fire where she was trying to cook. And it was just fortunate that she didn't burn herself. And that's when I thought, I can't keep doing this."
Ms Pavlidis decided to move her mother to a Greek-specific aged care facility.
She says for her mother, who migrated to Australia when she was younger, it was important being around her ancestral culture, language and food."
Being at a Greek specific facility where they spoke primarily Greek and the food, 90 per cent of the menu, was traditional Greek food. And they would read the Greek paper first thing in the morning read, and then everything they did pretty much was in the Greek language. So that was very important for us because my mother attended a lot of Greek specific social clubs prior to her suffering the stroke and the cognitive decline. And initially she said, 'oh, this is being at the club all the time.’”
Ms Pavlidis says, throughout her mother's stay, she would be a consistent advocate for her care and worked collaboratively with the staff to ensure her mother had the best possible quality of life in her later years.
She advises others to get engaged and learn how to best advocate for their loved ones.
"It was important for the advocates of the person that's placed in the facility to be very engaged, to be very informed, to advocate on behalf of their person."
