Improving access to catch-up immunisations for humanitarian arrivals: a qualitative study

No one arriving as a refugee or asylum seeker to Australia will be up-to-date with vaccinations aligning with the Australian National Immunisation Program (NIP) Schedule.1 This is due to a multitude of reasons inherently related to the refugee experience, including differing vaccine schedules in each country and pre-arrival barriers to accessing healthcare. Refugee health centres have been established in some areas in South-East Queensland, where new arrivals are offered a thorough health assessment and initiation of catch-up immunisations.2 Following this initial visit, the person is referred to a general practitioner (GP) in their local area for ongoing follow-up care of outstanding health concerns and completion of their catch-up immunisations. However, there is no refugee health centre on the Gold Coast (an area 66 km south of Brisbane), so those settled in that area are referred directly to a few local GPs (see Figure 1). However, few medical centres in the Gold Coast currently provide follow- up for refugees with more centres moving to private billing3 or unwilling to see humanitarian arrivals. In addition, these primary care centres are in areas where humanitarian arrivals have historically been settled due to housing