St Basil’s Staff Are Learning Greek

$15,000 has been donated to St Basil’s Nursing Home to help fund a new project that will teach staff how to speak Greek.
The lessons are in collaboration with Macquarie University and will run 3 times a week over a one-year period at the Lakemba facility.

To ensure St Basil’s Nursing Home remains the leader in aged care facilities in the Greek community, 150 staff will be given language lessons to ease the communication barrier between residents and staff.

Currently, only 18% of staff at St Basil’s speak Greek.
Residents will often ask for basic needs such as water or assistance to use the bathrooms.

Often, non-Greek speaking staff members will seek a Greek staff member to translate what the resident is asking for.
To be able to train staff to speak and respond with basic words and sentences in Greek will allow residents to feel more at home and find comfort.
Staff will be taught basic sentences that will be taught to include “I need some water”, “I want to go to bed” and “I am experiencing chest pains.”

These basic sentences and phrases will be relevant and will cover content applicable in daily health and life.

‘Through our support, St Basil’s Nursing Home will be able to bridge the communication barriers that staff and residents are currently experiencing,’ George Coorey, Chairman of Canterbury League Club said.

‘We are proud to support a community initiative that will help provide more efficient response time to the residents and create a home like environment.’