Author Topic: An Australian in......well, I guess it's still Australia  (Read 5395 times)

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Offline greynurse

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An Australian in......well, I guess it's still Australia
« on: July 26, 2018, 09:02:05 AM »
This is a follow up to Ichigo's 2014 topic  "This is what happened to my profession?"

The crux of Ichigo's post was that too many non English speaking immigrants are enjoying the local culture without bothering to learn the language, making for a less than satisactory cultural fit, and creating day to day community and workplace problems and stresses because of it.
We are experiencing similar issues in Australia. To the point where our government has upped the ante on aquisition of citizenship by including tougher literacy examinations. Cudos to the government on that one.
As a nurse, it impacts on our profession in ways that many people are not aware of. For a start, many immigrants have no idea about numbers of visitors allowed to see their sick relatives or friends. Numbers are set by the local hospital and care home authorites so that they do differ from hospital to hospital, but generally it's 4 at a time. This is to miniomize stress on other patients, their friends and relatives and to maintain a safe environment in the facility grounds. Yeah, right!
I have entered patients rooms to find that I don't even have room for a small dressings trolly. 12 or more visitors at an immigrant patient's bedside is not uncommon. Add to that the fact that they bring in and feed them foods that have been deemed inappropriate by a speech pathologist. You tell them this and the usual reply is "he/she is not used to the food they get here." Well tough titties! You want them looked after, stop interfering with their treatment. We do look after their cultural considerations by the way, but that doesn't seemed to be enough for the visitors who "know better".
Then there's the language barrier itself. I wasn't aware, until I started working in aged care, how many senior citizens in our community know not one word of English. Okay, so I make it a point to learn some basic phrases for each of the ethnic residents in my care. Things like the greeting words, terms of endearment (the ladies love that) and simple words of encouragement. But should I really have to know phrases like "Do you want to go to the toilet" or "would you like a cup of coffee / tea" in 10 languages?
Hopefully, the government's new immigation policy initiatives will make that a thing of the past, but you know what? The potential citizenship seekers will bone up and learn what they have to know to pass their citizenship exams (like we all learned to do at school, right?) and then they'll promptly forget it all once thay have that certificate in their hot little hands. They'll go back to their community where the language of the fatherland / motherland is the only language spoken and we'll be back at sqaure one. You just watch.
Cheers,

Nursie

Offline Itchigo

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Re: An Australian in......well, I guess it's still Australia
« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2018, 11:38:57 AM »
I totally agree, although I don't have experience in the medical industry. I'm not bitter about immigrants, but I don't think I should have to change as a citizen for someone we grant the privilege of coming in. Multilingual is just fine with me. I love seeing the cars with the Mexican flag on them, and they say USA sucks, Mexico's great, etc. If that's the case, why are you here? If Mexico was so bad you left, and the USA sucks so bad, you're trying to make it more like Mexico....?! (Mexico is an example, this works with any other nationality as well as I am not picking on Mexico).

The same people who don't want a wall, and want open immigration are the same ones who DON'T want this country to succeed. After all, you can't throw resources at a problem that's fixed, can you? :Whistle: If there's nothing to complain about then we don't need to spend time and effort on fixing something that isn't broken. Unfortunately, that means the "complainers" lose all their power. Hmm, I guess I'll never make President huh...

I'll leave you with a joke I heard on the comedy channel... "Mexico is such a dirty country, but when you think of all the cleaning ladies that come from there... I mean, if everyone picked up a couple things on their way out....." :Lol:
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