Pasifika-led care fuses worship with wellbeing
Western Sydney is delivering a new style of healthcare for the Pasifika community, infused with spirituality and culture.
PasifiKare clinic at Blacktown Hospital
Read transcriptPictures of golden sandy beaches and crystal-clear water, coastal music filling the room.
Women and children from Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Niue sit together in prayer and share stories and culture.
This is healthcare at the PasifiKare clinic in Western Sydney.
The Blacktown and Mount Druitt renal clinic has piloted the PasifiKare program, a monthly service that practices culturally informed care for people from Pasifika communities.
In 2024, the medical team led by A/Prof Lukas Kairaitis and Dr Katrina Chau reached out to local cultural groups and churches to see how they could improve appointment retention and healthcare outcomes for Pasifika people in Western Sydney.
“Western Sydney has the highest number of Pasifika people in Australia, who have very high rates of Diabetes and chronic diseases',” A/Prof Karaitis said.
Lukas said he was seeing too many young Pasifika patients present with disastrous health complications including kidney failure, strokes and heart attacks.
“Too often this was in the context of limited engagement with health providers, despite many of the patients having a known diagnosis.”
This led Lukas and Katrina to consider what could be done differently to engage with this community, and a collaboration was established between Blacktown and Mount Druitt Hospital and the Blacktown Uniting Church.
“While there are many differences between the island Pasifika cultures, one consistent feature is their spirituality and their church,” he said.
Religion, culture and family are often viewed as more important than physical health, so in order for the clinicians to address physical health they sought to provide medical care as part of a spiritual activity.
Regulations prevent healthcare being offered outside a healthcare setting, so the newly established partnership came up with the idea of bringing the church to the hospital.
Reverend Raymond Joso from the Blacktown Uniting Church attends the session with a number of church volunteers, which starts with a sermon, singing and prayer before the clinic opens and patients attend their appointments.
Between appointments, the patients share stories or chat with church volunteers and have morning tea, making the experience far more relaxed and respectful of spiritual guidance and fellowship.
The team hope to grow the attendees, and improve the rates of patients returning for regular appointments.
Kale Tutaki is a church volunteer and a former paediatric nurse at Mount Druitt Hospital for nearly twenty years.
Kale was born and raised in Niue, a small Polynesian island east of Tonga, she trained in New Zealand as a nurse in the 1970s before returning to Niue to work as a nurse.
“I had this deep feeling in me that I need to go back and serve my country and also help my family,” Kale said.
Servitude is what motivates Kale to volunteer her time to help the Pasifika community in Western Sydney.
“I'm glad I'm part of it, I'm proud I'm part of it,” Kale said.
For more information please visit the Renal Services in Western Sydney website.
