Post by Cabrini HEALTH

This week, as Australia observes National Refugee Week 2026, the Cabrini Asylum Seeker and Refugee Health Hub also marks a decade of providing compassionate care to some of our community's most vulnerable people. Since opening its doors in 2016, the Hub has helped about 1700 clients. For each of them, it represents a point of contact in an unfamiliar country, a place where physical and mental health needs can finally be met and where they can be treated as an equal. Currently, our Hub looks after 426 clients, each with their own unique stories to tell. One of those stories belongs to Sangeetha and her husband Swergeswaran, who fled Sri Lanka's civil war as young children and spent the next 22 years in refugee camps in India before eventually making the 18-day journey to Australia with their two young sons, then aged four and seven. After losing their work rights in 2024, the family's health suffered and it was at this point a friend told them about Cabrini. From that very first appointment, everything changed. “Finally, we come to Cabrini and after the first meeting we felt like we have somebody to look after us," Sangeetha says. "That's the best thing in our life since we came to Australia." That sense of connection is something the Hub's nursing team works hard to build from the first appointment. When a new client arrives, the team conducts a comprehensive health assessment, gathering physical and medical history alongside the psychosocial background that shapes a person's overall wellbeing. From there, the team coordinates vaccinations, follow-up care, wound care and specialist referrals, while also supporting clients through practical challenges like housing, income and legal needs. Christine Parrott, nursing team leader in the Cabrini primary health care team, believes the ability to spend genuine time with clients is one of the things that makes the Hub so special. "I think what's really nice about us, compared to, say, a regular GP service, is we are able to spend a lot of time with our clients," Christine says. "I think that's one of the beauties about this service." Recently granted permanent residency, Sangeetha's family is now looking to the future with hope. Her sons, now 18 and 21, have plans to study biomedicine and serve in the army. Sangeetha herself is already giving back, having recently become an organ donor - a decision she made as an act of gratitude for the country she now calls home. For the Cabrini Asylum Seeker and Refugee Health Hub, Sangeetha and her family’s story is proof of what is possible when people are treated with consistency, dignity and compassion. "Everywhere we went, doorways closed, but here they welcome you,” she says. “Without Cabrini, I don't think we could have come this far." Read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/gpitE3tP #NationalRefugeeWeek2026 #CabriniHealth Sharon Sherwood Tracey Cabrie Catholic Health Australia Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne