"Different cultures"

I have had quite an issue but have never felt comfortable reporting it, especially in small communities. I feel it’s a lot harder to bring up these situations in such a small community, however I believe the staff member is still in their job. I recall a clinician went on what felt was like a 10 min tirade about how it was wrong and not the ‘Australian way’. I believe this advice changed around 8 weeks prior to the incident. Not only did I find this comment out of line, but also not up to date on current medical advice on things. For a clinician to feel the need to comment about my fallings and little digs about how incompetent I was because I didn’t follow the books.

I went to see a different clinician and it seemed their comment was spoken to me as if I was slow. I feel that is so offensive. I believe there are more and more people in this community who are not native Australian but are refugees who come here and to be constantly pointed out that if it’s not done in the Australian way then we are inadequate, we are rubbish. This was coming from a medical professional. I mentioned it to our surgery who said that it’s not our problem speak to Alpine Health. I really think they need to be aware of it.

I’m not there to whinge, I’m quite considerate of people being under stress. But a clinician should not impose their personal views. Now if I am an unfit parent then it is a different business, and if everything is fine, then they should not criticise. In my opinion, it is really problematic when you take away cultural background, you change a whole person and should not be part of medical advice unless you are not growing properly. I feel it shouldn’t be acceptable.

I really think that there are some amazing nurses such as Margot at the hospital. she is awesome, she is caring, she is really lovely. And I had a lovely gp, he wasn’t a typical gp, he didn’t beat around a bush. But on the other side, I feel there are a whole lot of people who seem to be suffering from tall poppy syndrome.

Based on my experience, I really think the shire needs to start realizing there are people who are of a different cultural background and they need to cater to that. What it boils down to is so much of their healthcare service need to not be xenophobic. When visiting medical professionals to say to a client that’s not how we do it in Australia, it leaves me out. You go back and you sort of get the feeling that you have to.