29 March 2010

More than 150 workshops will be held across Australia over the next three months to help seniors from non-English speaking backgrounds understand medicines use issues.

The workshops will be run in six different languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, Greek, Italian, Arabic and Vietnamese. They have been funded by the National Prescribing Service in partnership with the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Council of Australia (FECCA) and are being organised by ethno-specific organisations in every state and territory.

The workshops will cover two specific topics: ‘Safe and wise use of medicines’ and ‘Sleep and ageing’. The ‘Safe and wise use of medicine’ seminar builds on the knowledge gained from a highly successful workshop series run in 2008. The ‘Sleep and ageing’ workshop explains normal sleep patterns, good sleep practices and information about sleep medicines.

“We know that the risk of adverse events increases with the number of medicines people take, and it’s further heightened for people with low English proficiency,” NPS CEO, Dr Lynn Weekes said.

“The reasons for this include misunderstanding instructions given by a health professional, fear of or resistance to questioning the health professional, and cultural differences, which may include different definitions of what is a medicine.”

“Coupled with the fact that 90 per cent of Australians over the age of 65 are taking at least one prescription or non-prescription medicine at any given time, these workshops can prove invaluable for seniors with low English proficiency.”

The workshops will be presented in-language by bilingual health professionals using information and materials prepared by NPS and translated by qualified professionals.

Translated resources such as Medimate and Medicines List will also be available for the workshop participants.

The languages for the workshops have been chosen based on the percentage of people in that community aged over 50 and with low English proficiency.

For more information including workshop dates and times contact Jackie Stephenson, NPS project officer, on 02 8217 8756 or email multilingualqum@nps.org.au.

Participating organisations

The National Prescribing Service Limited (NPS) is an independent, not-for-profit organisation for quality use of medicines funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.