The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) has taken a bold step to improve cross cultural support for patients and families by signing an historic Memorandum of Understanding with refugee and migrant support agency, AMES.

The MOU recognises the growing cohort of families within the hospital who do not speak fluent English, have recently arrived in Australia, or have cultural or religious preferences that are not readily supported in the hospital.

RCH CEO Professor Christine Kilpatrick said a lack of cultural awareness in the health setting was a barrier to delivering great care to all children and adolescents.

“Australia is a nation of migrants and, for all of us, at some point in our familial journey, this land has been our salvation,” Christine said.

“Providing salvation is also the role of The Royal Children’s Hospital, and this MOU recognises that many families have particular needs we must better understand if we’re to provide exceptional care across the board,” she said.

AMES has been providing education and work placement to support migrants and refugees for 60 years. Its expertise in shaping program delivery to meet the needs of diverse communities is unrivalled.

Two terrific cultural programs are already underway at the RCH under the auspices of the MOU.

Accredited AMES volunteers have been recruited to join the hospital’s existing 300-person strong Volunteer Service to build cultural diversity within the team.

“This is hugely beneficial for our hospital, not just in the immediate future but the extended one. In time, we hope to use this increased capability to survey culturally and linguistically diverse patients and families about their hospital experience, to identify and fill any gaps in our service provision,” Christine said.

The second program allows the hospital to support the education and training initiatives of AMES. Commencing Monday this week, 11 AMES clients began a work placement program at the RCH, working with the hospital’s Food Services, Support Services, Infrastructure and Procurement, and Family Services teams.

AMES CEO Cath Scarth said the partnership between AMES and the RCH was one that would continue to benefit both organisations immensely.

“Many of AMES’ clients are from newly emerging communities who may have little understanding of a public health system. We know that the AMES – Royal Children’s Hospital relationship will help to reduce these difficulties and barriers,” Cath said.

“The RCH is the largest children’s hospital in Australia and we are pleased to be helping the hospital meet a commitment to becoming culturally competent and increasing its understanding of diversity. This is the first MOU which AMES has signed with a hospital and we hope it leads to further collaborations in the health sector in the future,” she said.