Health Assessment & Ongoing Care
1. Promoting Refugee Health: A guide for doctors and other healthcare providers caring for people from refugee backgrounds
A comprehensive resource for GPs and other healthcare practitioners on the special health concerns and approaches to care for people of refugee backgrounds.This guide includes referral and related information.
To view click here.
2. Caring for Refugees Patients in General Practice: A Desktop Guide
A concise version of the PRH guide designed to complement the Health Assessment Tool, incluing referral information.To view click here.
3. Medicare Health Assessments for Refugees and Other Humanitarian Entrants
A Fact Sheet and Question and Answer Sheet for the new MBS items covering refugee health assessment are now available on the Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) website. Click here to view the fact sheet, and click here to view the question and answer sheet.
To access the refugee health assessment template produced by General Practice Victoria (GPV) and endorsed by the RACGP click here
Please note: the former MBS Item numbers 714 & 716 Health Assessment for Refugees and Other Humanitarian Entrants have been subsumed into new generic health assessment item numbers (from May 2010).
4. Medicare Australia and Refugee Health Assessments: Clarification of pathology tests for refugee patients. Provides questions and answers authorised by Dr Andrew Leaver, Senior Medical Advisor for Medicare, Victoria and Tasmania.
5. Red and General Health Alerts for Humanitarian Entrants, Department of Immigration and Citizenship Fact Sheet. Following the introduction of Pre-Departure Medical Screening (PDMS) for offshore refugee and special humanitarian entrants in 2006, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship introduced a two-tier medical alert system – Red and General Alerts. This sheet explains what these are and the procedures followed.
6. Victorian Refugee Vaccine Order Form & Criteria Eligibility: this is available on the Victorian Department of Health Immunisation program website at: http://www.health.vic.gov.au/immunisation/provider-forms/forms
7. The Refugee Health Service Coordination Guide for Victoria 2009 is a resource developed by the HealthWest Partnership to support the development of a coordinated approach to providing health services to newly arrived communities. It aims to assist agencies in the development of processes, protocols and pathways to help streamline services and reduce duplication of efforts. The four sections include:
(1) History of the Refugee Health Program
(2) Service Coordination Principles
(3) Refugee Health Service Coordination
(4) Implementing Refugee Health Service Coordination
For a copy of this Guide, click here.
Further information onthe Refugee Health Service Coordination Project is available on the Healthwest website.
8. Access to Specialist Services by Refugees in Victoria (2009): a new research report commissioned by the Department of Human Services and undertaken by the Victorian Foundation for the Survivors of Torture (Foundation House). Written by project consultant, Maree Kulkens in consultation with the project advisory group, it documents existing care pathways for refugees requiring specialist health services in Victoria in order to determine the most effective models of care and identify possible new models of service delivery.
9. Northern Division of General Practice: Refugee Health: Comprehensive site includes Refugee Health Care GP Kit and links to information & resources on medical issues, referral, practice management, training & multilingual resources. Links also to MBS refugee health assessment item, and refugee health assessment template. To view visit the website and click resources and scroll down to Refugee Health Care Resources.
10. Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases (ASID) Diagnosis, management and prevention of infections in recently arrived refugees (2009)
Guidelines for the screening and treatment of infectious diseases in recently arrived refugees endorsed by the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases, Communicable Diseases Network Australia, National Tuberculosis Advisory Committee and the Australasian Chapter of Sexual Health Medicine.
11. Royal Children’s Hospital Immigrant Health Clinic Guidelines
Guidelines on initial assessment, immunisation, vitamins D and A, parasite infections, hepatitis B, tuberculosis and iron deficiency and anaemia. To view click here.
12. NSW Refugee Health Service MBS Refugee Health Items postcard
Concise overview and explanation of the MBS refugee health assessments.
13. NSW Refugee Health Service Fact Sheets
Available from their website including fact sheets on:
- Interpreters and Medical Practitioners in Private Practice
- Infectious Diseases
- Medical Information relating to Refugees and Asylum Seekers
- Refugee Women and Health Care
14. Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP)
Refugee and Asylum Seeker Health Resource Centre. To view click here.
15. Refugee Health Update in Medical Observer
The Medical Observer (5 June, 2009) update looks at how GPs can become involved in the healthcare of refugee-background patients. This concise overview provides information on common health problems, management in general practice and tips for GPs. Medical Observer has permitted the Victorian Refugee Health Network to put this article on our website, however it cannot be reproduced without permission from Medical Observer.
16. Christmas Island Health Information (updated 2/8/2010)
A summary for health practitioners about the range of assessments and health services provided to those on Christmas Island.
To view click here.
17. Pre Departure Medical Screening (PDMS) updated information
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) have produced information on the two types of PDMS (Full and Short) which are conducted within 72 hours of clients departure to Australia. The first document provides a comparative breakdown of the components in the Full and Short PDMS screenings, click here for a copy. The second document identifies type of screenings for certain countries and locations, click here for a copy.
18. Download refugee health information for free on You Tube
Extracts from the NSW Refugee Health Improvement Network's Health Check DVD: "Health information for recently arrived African communities in Australia" are now available free online in seven languages. See www.youtube.com/user/refugeehealth