AMA VICDOC Winter 2025 - Magazine - Page 47
to. Today Hand-n-Hand is a national
charity. Healthcare workers sign up with
us and we create groups and match people
in the same discipline or at the same level
The health of asylum seekers and refugees of their career with their peers. We've
still got a couple of groups that have
is an extremely under-resourced area. It
can be very valuable, much-needed work. been going right since the beginning of
Within our public mental health system, COVID, and others that have formed
as a need arose and just lasted for a few
the specific resources and availability of
sessions.
clinics or teams who've got staff with
specialised knowledge in this area
PSYCHIATRISTS PROVIDE CARE ACROSS
needs a lot more development.
THE HUMAN LIFESPAN, FROM BIRTH
I believe that all clinicians would
benefit from more grounding in crossTHROUGH TO END OF LIFE CARE.
cultural mental health issues. Most of
THERE'S SUCH A NEED FOR MENTAL
us could never imagine or grasp the
HEALTHCARE AND PSYCHIATRY.
extent of the horrors that many asylum
seekers have experienced before fleeing
Psychiatry is the perfect specialty to go
their homeland, during their migration
into If you’re fascinated by mental health
journeys and then in detention in
and are as interested in the person who's
Australia. One of the key elements
got the illness as much as the illness itself.
of a trauma-informed approach is
Add in social determinants of health,
for us – doctors – to ensure we do
the mixture of social, psychological and
no further harm.
spiritual aspects as well as the biological
and there’s a huge smorgasbord of
ANOTHER OF MY PASSIONS IS
career options – anything from clinical
care of individual patients and their
HAND-N-HAND, WHICH HAS BEEN
families, research, academia, education,
GOING FOR FIVE YEARS NOW.
social policy, administration and service
Hand-n-Hand provides free, confidential development. It's a very complex,
worthwhile and rewarding specialty.
and independent peer support for all
health professionals, care staff and
non-clinical staff in Australia and
New Zealand. It was the brainwave of
Dr Tahnee Bridson, who at that stage
was a psychiatry registrar in Queensland.
During COVID she recognised that
it’d be lovely to have someone to talk
WHEN YOU WORK WITH ASYLUM SEEKERS
AND REFUGEES YOU MUST HAVE A VERY
TRAUMA-INFORMED APPROACH.
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