Funds to Access Palliative Care for Ethnic Communities

Victorian Government has provided Palliative Care Victoria with $400,000 funding to work with multicultural organisations to raise awareness of palliative care for people with a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) background.

“We know that almost 24% of Victorians were born overseas; however people from CALD backgrounds only account for 7% of palliative care clients,” Health Minister David Davis said.

“We need to address this imbalance, and one way of doing this is by raising community awareness of death and end-of-life care, including palliative care.

“Evidence tells us that applying best practice approaches to health promotion and peer education within CALD communities is an effective way of raising awareness.”

Minister Davis said the Culturally Responsive Palliative Care Community Education project would engage with the Chinese, Italian, Maltese, Turkish and Vietnamese communities.

“It’s important people from CALD backgrounds are accessing specialist palliative care appropriate to their needs at the right time, in the place of their choice,” Davis said.

“Our challenge is to improve the information about where people can enquire about palliative care and have information on hand describing the care options available.”