Reaching more Australians through culturally and linguistically inclusive accessibility

Expanding National Coronavirus Helpline accessibility

A new text message (SMS) service connects anyone having difficulty booking their COVID-19 vaccination to the National Coronavirus Helpline through the new Easy Vaccine Access service.

Australians can text ‘Hey EVA’ to 0481 611 382 and receive a call back from the National Coronavirus Helpline team to help them make a vaccine appointment. In the text message they provide their name, state, preferred time/date of call and most importantly their preferred language. The call back includes an interpreter from the Translating and Interpreting Service to enable a seamless and culturally inclusive vaccine booking service.

Multicultural Connect Health helpline

Healthdirect Australia has launched a pilot in Victoria of a new helpline designed to assist culturally and linguistically diverse parts of the population to access health information, including triage of their health symptoms by a registered nurse on the healthdirect helpline.

In partnership with World Wellness Group, the Multicultural Connect Health helpline provides callers who have specific cultural or linguistic needs, with assistant from the Translation Interpreter Service (TIS), where required.

Together, on a conference-style call, call handlers with the assistance of TIS, will run through a series of clinical questions about the callers symptoms and provide advice on what medical help should be sought, or if the caller should manage their symptoms at home.

Additionally, callers can use the Multicultural Connect Health helpline for COVID-19 health questions to receive up-to-date information about COVID-19 vaccines, isolation requirements, close contacts and current restrictions.

To help non-English speaking people navigate the Australian healthcare system, the helpline also answers questions about health services, Medicare and private healthcare options.

Helping all Australians manage COVID-19 at home

The healthdirect website has simplified COVID-19 information for its COVID clarity (Opens in new tab) campaign which is available in 16 languages, including English, Arabic, Bengali, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Khmer, Korean, Punjabi, Serbian, Spanish, Tagalog, Turkish and Vietnamese.

These pages provide easy-to-understand and up-to-date information on what people should do if they are COVID-19 positive, symptoms and what support is available.