Homelessness Week (1 – 7 August) is an opportunity to reflect on the impact of homelessness in Australia.
Every night, there are over 116,000 people around the country experiencing homelessness.
At Monash Health, we’re committed to providing holistic care to people experiencing homelessness. To highlight the health and social impacts of this issue, we spoke to Peti Niko and Xuemei Zhang, who are both Care Coordinators with the Living Well program.
The Living Well Program is a collaboration between Monash Health Community and Bolton Clarke’s Homeless Persons Program, providing a primary health care response to people with complex and chronic health needs who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
“Many people think of homelessness as sleeping rough on the streets,” says Xuemei. “But people can experience secondary and tertiary homelessness as well. Secondary homelessness refers to people living in refuges, shelters, or emergency accommodation. Tertiary homelessness means living in accommodation such as boarding houses and supported residential services.”
“The Living Well Program engages with people residing in supported residential services within the Greater Dandenong Community,” says Peti. “We also attend the Cornerstone Breakfast twice a month as a way to engage with clients and to offer health advice and education to other disadvantaged areas of the community.”
The team consists of a Community Health Nurse, Diabetes Nurse Educator, Podiatrist, Dietitian, Counsellor, Occupational Therapist, Physiotherapist, and Care Coordinators Peti and Xuemei, who are also nurses.
The Community Health Nurse and Care Co-ordinators offer engagement, advocacy, support, communication, education, and transport to ensure improved health outcomes and greater compliance for participants.
Xuemei says that it’s important we all recognise the right and unique needs of people who are homeless.
“It’s important that employees across Monash Health acknowledge homeless people and acknowledge there is a story behind homelessness. There is a reason why people become homeless, and we need to empower them and provide support at the level they need, and they are comfortable with.”
Approved by Julia Oxley