23 March 2005

With more than 70% of all Australians taking medicines at any one time, National Prescribing Service Ltd (NPS) has launched its first national program for Vietnamese Australians to help them better understand their medicines – “Get to know your medicines”.

Medicines are designed to help improve health, however medicines-related problems are a major concern and can impact heavily on the individual, their families and the health system.

Approximately 140,000 hospital admissions per year may be related to problems with medicines. This is more than the combined number of admissions for asthma and heart failure.

The Vietnamese “Get to know your medicines” program was guided by research with people of Vietnamese background, by NPS and the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils’ of Australia (FECCA).

In this research consumers of medicines from Vietnamese backgrounds reported reluctance to ask their GP or pharmacist questions about their medicines. The study also suggested a need for more information about where to get reliable information about medicines.

“People come to the doctor with great respect. They never ask the doctor about what this tablet is for” said one research participant.

“If I feel good, I stop taking medicines. I do not want to use so many medicines”

As part of the program, NPS has developed ‘Medimate’ – a bilingual information brochure in Vietnamese and English, designed to help consumers better understand their medicines.

Medimate is a free practical guide that will help Vietnamese Australians find, understand and use information about medicines more effectively. Medimate is a valuable resource and it is now available in Vietnamese, Chinese, Italian, Greek and English.

To make sure medicines are used appropriately Medimate advises people to ask their doctor and pharmacist questions about their medicines and tell them about their current health conditions and all medicines that they are taking. Importantly this includes traditional Vietnamese medicine as well as Western medicines.

To order free copies of Medimate in Vietnamese visit www.nps.org.au and go to the consumer section.

NPS is an independent, non-profit organisation funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. The ‘Get to know your medicines’ Program is a joint program run by NPS in partnership with FECCA. The program brings together FECCA’s expertise as the peak, national body representing Australia’s culturally and linguistically diverse communities; and NPS’s expertise as Australia’s peak, independent, education and information provider about medicines.