TRANSCRIPT
At one of Australia’s busiest hospitals, Dr Kumail Jaffry is scrubbing in for surgery.
For the Hazara refugee it’s a dream come true.
“It's just an amazing feeling. I think it can't be described in words to be honest - to become a doctor and to become a surgeon, I've been thinking pretty much since childhood.”
Dr Jaffry is a colorectal surgery resident at Victoria’s Dandenong Hospital, a major teaching and research hospital serving one of Australia’s most diverse communities where more than 130 languages are spoken.
“What I speak at home is Hazaghi, which is quite similar to another language that I speak Dari as well as Farsi. I think that's about three four now, isn't it? And I can speak Urdu, which is spoken in Pakistan and a bit of a Hindi as well mainly spoken in India. Throughout my journey here at Monash Health, I've been providing random interpretation for patients in six different languages. And what I've found that it actually increases and improves patient's trust, autonomy as well as satisfaction.”
His new life as a doctor in Melbourne is a world away from his birth town two and a half hours drive south of Kabul in Afghanistan.
Growing up Dr Jaffry faced many barriers to higher education.
“I was born a Hazara and as we know the Hazaras faced a lot of persecution back in Afghanistan. It was a tough life. While I was very young, there's some memories that have really stuck with me. We lived in poverty, we lived in fear, we were not able to get out of the house to pursue our dreams, hence there was this major setback for me to fulfill my dreams and to become a doctor.”
Hazaras are among the most discriminated ethnic minorities in Afghanistan.
Violence has escalated since the Taliban regained control in 2021.
Kumail first experienced persecution in childhood.
“My uncle was shot dead. So having our very close members of our family not coming home one day and then coming home later, but not being alive, I think it's a major barrier for anyone to step out of the house. If you are constantly being targeted, you have that fear always at the back of your head to even step out of the house. So let alone going to a university.”
After his father became ill, Dr Jaffry took on responsibility for his mother and younger brothers.
When he was 11 years old, the family fled across the border into Pakistan.
“Again, it was very similar situation in Pakistan, just like how it had been in Afghanistan. The people of Hazara were still being targeted. Some of my family members, like my grandparents, they were already in Australia working in Mildura for a better future and they were able to support us in Pakistan to be able to escape and then come to Australia for a better future.”
Dr Jaffry vividly recalls his own challenges, arriving in Melbourne as a 12-year-old with his mother and siblings in 2011, as refugees from Pakistan.
“I felt that I was in a completely new world. When I first came to Australia I could barely speak any English, so I always had someone with me in the classroom for me to be able to understand the content. They would translate, they would help me understand what's written in English on the board. Language was a barrier, but I got through that quite quickly. I think I was only about 12 months or 13 months in and I was able to converse.”
After joining family in the Victorian town of Mildura, Dr Jaffry says an accident impacting his younger brother spurred his decision to study medicine here.
“We were going from Mildura to Adelaide for a short trip and on the way we decided to take a stop, take a bit of a rest and take out our traditional hot tea. And unfortunately my little brother dropped boiling water on his lap and being the only one who could speak English, I quickly had to search the GPS for the nearest hospital. There were limited doctors, so we had to fly to Adelaide to a major metropolitan hospital. There I saw what it's really like working as a doctor. They were compassionate, they were giving everything they could do to help treat my brother.”
Dr Jaffry went on to study biomedical science, later graduating with a bachelor of medicine degree from Monash University in 2022.
Monash Health surgeon Dr James Lim says Dr Jaffry’s language skills are vital on the wards.
“These patients when they come in to hospital let alone to surgery they are anxious – some from backgrounds they come from have been displaced and face challenges and struggles and it makes a big diff because as a doctor, being able to touch base to talk about what they are going thru in native tongue really puts them at ease.”
Dr Jaffry says his language skills are also in demand in the wider community, on various preventative health projects.
“Working quite closely with some of the community organizations to provide education sessions in different languages for our refugee and migrant people to be able to improve their health literacy and actually work on that primary prevention side of things rather than for them to come to hospital and then having us treat them.”
Dandenong is one of Australia’s most culturally diverse areas, with 64 per cent of residents born overseas. Many have fled conflict, violence or experienced displacement.
Rob Koch is senior advisor for community engagement at Monash Health.
“There are people that have been here for years and are still struggling to understand and engage the health system. And there are obviously people who have just landed who are quite high needs in so many ways. Sometimes there can be a delay in getting an interpreter to the actual patient exchange. So to have a doctor who can speak the language, it can I guess address that difficulty in a marvellous way.”
Dr Jaffry has his sights set on becoming a colorectal surgeon ‘to focus on an area of the body which people really feel uncomfortable to share about’. He also hopes to inspire a new generation of migrants and refugees.
“Hopefully with my story I would like to tell the children of migrants and the refugees that yes, it's hard, but there's a lot of support around you. Don't give up, give back to the community and that will act as a driving force for you to achieve anything in life.”
