Arabic and Dari-speaking patients are being asked to help shape care at Logan Hospital, where requests for interpreters reach nearly 2000 a month.
Logan and Beaudesert person-centred care coordinator Sarah Collins said interpreter requests had increased over the past six months, with about 86 languages requested and Arabic and Dari the most common.
She wants people from those communities who have used Logan Hospital’s services to join its patient advisory group and help staff understand their experiences.
“The staff want to learn as well and the best way to do that is obviously from the consumers themselves,” Ms Collins said.
Ms Collins coordinates about 28 consumer partners across Logan and Beaudesert — people who draw on their experiences as patients or family members to help improve services.
Their involvement extends from reviewing patient information to helping select staff.
“They sit on committee meetings. They sit on projects. They sit on interview panels,” she said.
“They review patient information documents to make sure that they’re easy to understand.”
Ms Collins said the group already represented a broad range of patients, but she wanted stronger representation from Arabic and Dari-speaking communities.
She said hospital liaison officers provided valuable support, while consumer partners could offer another perspective on how staff communicated and delivered culturally appropriate care.
“We want them to understand and also to take part,” she said of patients.
Ms Collins said understanding medical information could be difficult even for people who spoke English as their first language.
“The health system is so complex and doctors and nurses, they speak in their own language and have, you know, this lingo and acronyms,” she said.
Staff training encouraged plain English and checking that patients understood what had happened during their appointments.
Consumer partners also shared their experiences during training, including occasions when a doctor’s explanation or communication had fallen short.
Ms Collins said people did not need to have had an entirely positive hospital experience to contribute. Some had been invited to become consumer partners after making a complaint.
“Some might be positive, some might be negative but they feel like coming on board is their way to change maybe something,” she said.
The work is helping inform Metro South Health’s Consumer and Community Engagement Strategy for 2027–2030.
During a recent two-hour consultation at Logan Hospital, consumer partners spoke with 49 patients, carers and community members and 30 staff.
Ms Collins said one concern raised locally was difficulty finding appointments amid construction, changing pathways and road closures.
She said the hospital’s communications team was working to keep signs current, but patients wanted clearer information about getting around the site.
The feedback would be combined with responses from elsewhere in Metro South to guide the new strategy.
A separate recruitment campaign for Logan maternity consumer partners had attracted interest from about 20 women, Ms Collins said.
She said consumer partners received orientation and payment for their time, with opportunities to contribute to projects, research and patient information.
Arabic and Dari-speaking people who have used Logan Hospital’s services are encouraged to express interest in joining the group via Metro South Health’s become a consumer partner form.
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