Hearing Australia will now be offering multilingual services as doors open at new Fountain Gate and Glen Waverley centres.
With close to 1 in 4 Australian residents speaking a language other than English at home, and 1 in 4 Australians expected to suffer hearing loss by 2050, accessing supportive health services can sometimes be a challenge.
But linguistically diverse residents in South East Melbourne will have an easier way to get their hearing checked, with the two new centres offering multilingual audiologist services.
Audiologist Rohina Nejati, who is part of the Fountain Gate Hearing Australia team speaks five languages other than English, including Dari, Hazaragi, Persian, Urdu and Hindi.
“I am originally from Afghanistan but was brought up in Pakistan which is why I can speak these languages,” Rohina said.
“On my first day of working in the Cranbourne centre one of the clients who spoke Dari commented how much easier it is to be able to communicate one to one in his own language.
“It was apparent how happy the client and his family were when they left from the appointment.”
Rohina’s Hearing Australia colleague Violet Zhang is an audiologist providing services at the Glen Waverley centre and speaks English, Mandarin Chinese and Shanghainese.
“My parents were immigrants in the 1980s and I know how difficult language barriers can be to accessing services,” said Violet.
“I often think that in some ways, having English as a second language has many similarities to having hearing loss.
“You miss out on the ends and beginnings of sentences, if people are talking too quickly, or have a strong accent, you might find it difficult to join in on group conversations and find it more difficult in background noise.”
Hearing Australia has more than 170 locations around Australia and has also recently been voted Australia’s #1 Trusted Hearing Provider, for the third year in a row, in the Reader’s Digest Trusted Brands awards.
The new stores are open 6 days a week including from 9am-4pm on Saturdays, with people encouraged to visit hearing.com.au to book an appointment.
Anyone who is concerned about their hearing health should get in touch with their local Hearing Australia centre.
“We are a friendly and diverse team, come say hello,” said Violet.
