Use of hospitals and homelessness services by refugees and humanitarian entrants

Between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2021, there were 231,000 hospitalisations and 279,000 emergency department (ED) presentations for humanitarian entrants, or an average of 243 hospitalisations per 1,000 people and 294 ED presentations per 1,000 people annually.

Humanitarian entrants were almost twice as likely to be hospitalised or attend an ED as other permanent migrants in the period 2016–17 to 2020–21 (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Hospitalisations and ED presentations by financial year by cohort, 2016–17 to 2020–21

Notes:

1. Hospitalisations are counts of admitted patient care separations with an admission date in the financial year.
2. This analysis excludes people who lived in WA or NT or had hospitalisations in WA or NT.
3. This analysis is sourced from the Refugee health linked data set, direct comparisons to rates in the Australian population are not possible as this data source is limited to permanent migrants.

From 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021: 

• Rates of hospitalisations were highest in people who had been in Australia more than 10 years for both humanitarian entrants and other permanent migrants (Figure 3).
• Rates of ED presentations were highest in people who had been in Australia more than 10 years for humanitarian entrants and highest for people who had been in Australia more than 5 to 10 years for other permanent migrants (Figure 3).

These findings may relate to different age structures of each migrant cohort and would benefit from further investigation.

Notes:

1. Hospitalisations are counts of admitted patient care separations.
2. Time since arrival is calculated as the time between admission date (for hospitalisations) or presentation date (for ED presentations) and the arrival date in the Settlement Database.
3. This analysis excludes people who lived in WA or NT or had hospitalisations in WA or NT.