New research has shown that people from multicultural communities where generations live together place a lot of value on being able to live out their lives at home, making the provision of home care services critical.
The Aged Care’s Culture Gap report, released by the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute this month, looks at the challenges for older Australians from different cultural backgrounds in the aged care system.
Senior Researcher Trish Prentice says there needs to be recognition that everybody is an individual and has individual needs.
“But broader than that, culture, cultural background and religion and religious background plays a key role in people’s lives,” she told Community Care Review.
When it comes to home care, there is an emphasis on living out one’s final years at home, particularly for people from multicultural communities, she says.
Institutionalised care ‘foreign and offensive’
“The idea of institutionalising aged care is very foreign to a lot of people, especially cultures where generations might live in the same household,” she says.
“So, to put somebody into an aged care facility is culturally inappropriate and very foreign and offensive almost.
“For people who come from cultures where those generations live together in those final years, home care is critical.”
Home care packages need to take into account cultural differences, needs and preferences, Ms Prentice says.
“There might be things like having home care help who can come in with language capabilities or cultural sensitivities.
“(They are) things that will make the person who’s receiving that care in their home feel comfortable and valued.
“To put somebody in someone’s home who doesn’t have that cultural awareness would mean that they would find it more difficult to fulfil the caregiving role that they’re asked to.”
Language and food
There are certain things that will help older people feel more comfortable during their final years, Ms Prentice said.
One of these is language because people who learnt English as a second language often revert back to their native language in their final years.
“If you have somebody who’s reverting back to their particular language, but they don’t have the access to communicate with carers in that language, there is actually a breakdown in care,” Ms Prentice says.
Food can also be a need that needs to be met, particularly for those of a particular religious background.
“Those food choices become critically important; they feel that they can’t meet their religious requirements unless food preferences and regulations are taken into account.
“Those things that might appear small when we’re younger become much bigger for people who are elderly and ageing and in their latter years of life.”
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Posited as ‘new research, these findings replicate the responses to multiple engagement with communities in the last 20 years. From my perspective, there’s other issues not addressed and that includes costs associated with placement of an older person in a residential care facility, and the loss of the older person’s pension to the household finances. To just focus on religion, culture and language is so limiting. I think families continuing to live together is sometimes out of necessity not choice.
Certainly living at home safely is critical for an older person. I hear many stories of people from both migrant and non-migrant families who are caring out of guilt and unable to change the status for various reasons.