Asylum Seeker Health Services

The Asylum Seeker and Refugee Health Hub (The Hub) provides comprehensive primary health care and specialist mental health services to people seeking asylum and newly arrived refugees. To provide these services, we rely upon a mix of employed and pro bono staff to provide quality primary and specialist health care. Our services are provided, at no charge.

Throughout 2021-22, 284 new referrals were received across all our Asylum Seeker Health Services based in Brunswick and Shepparton.

Our nurse-led service delivered 869 direct consultations and more than 5700 episodes of care coordination with clients. Our General Practitioners (mix of employed and pro bono) conducted more than 500 client consultations.

Through our health waiver programs, which waive the cost of prescription medications for eligible clients, we spent $111,000 on pharmaceuticals. During 2021-22, we provided 1456 clients with 3884 essential medications through this service.

Mental health was a central feature of our service offering. Approximately 55% of clients in our asylum seeker health services have a mental health diagnosis, so we are continuously looking for ways to support these vulnerable people.

During 2021-22, our psychiatrists (mix of employed and pro bono) conducted more than 487 client consultations and our mental health clinicians delivered 480 onsite and 2459 telehealth consultations (including care coordination) with clients. The large increase demand for this service, and particularly for telehealth, was attributed to the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also offered the services of clinical psychologists and psychiatry registrars, who also provided onsite and telehealth consultations to meet the needs of our clients.