Residential Aged Care: Need for more Multi-lingual Carers

The Fairfield Champion has reported there is a concern there are not enough aged carers who speak a language other than English in the industry.

Chief Executive of Cardinal Stepinac Village Matt Smolcic said experienced carers who speak the same language as those in aged care should receive working visas.

 Mr Smolcic spoke at the South West Italian Australian Association Village forum and said difficulty with language was a major problem.

“We have 124 residents and most are from a non-English-speaking background,” Mr Smolcic told The Fairfield Champion.

“Four years ago, 90 per cent of our staff spoke Croatian and now only 50 per cent do” he said.

Mr Smolcic expressed concern about providing quality care to residents when carers did not speak the primary language of their residents.

The Federal Minister for Ageing Mark Butler, who attended the forum, agreed that there was a need for more workers to speak a second language.

“It’s a challenge because we might have 98 per cent of residents from one particular country” he said.

He mentioned that the Government had introduced a 24-hour interpreting service last year and that the next strategy would be to organise “someone to go in and speak with the residents one on one.”

The Government plans to release its culturally and linguistically (CALD) diverse aged care strategy later this year.