After fleeing Vietnam by boat in 1981, a dishwashing job at St Vincent’s hospital was Tuan Nguyen’s lucky break

‘I just needed a chance': from refugee to the heights of Australian medical research

Tuan Nguyen’s lucky break came in the form of a Mrs Ramsay, who cast an eye over his CV and offered him a job washing dishes in St Vincent’s hospital kitchen in Sydney.

That was 1982 and Nguyen was a refugee, having fled communist persecution in his native Vietnam, and only days in the country.

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Thirty-six years later, Nguyen is still at St Vincent’s, only now he is Professor Nguyen, and on Saturday was awarded a doctorate of science from the University of New South Wales for a quarter of a century researching osteoporosis and bone fractures at the Garvan Institute.

That long-distant kitchen interview, Nguyen tells Guardian Australia from his Garvan offices ahead of Refugee Week, was his first, and great, lucky break in his adopted country.

“I just needed one chance, that chance to get a job and to work. That sort of contact helped me to learn the way of life in Australia.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Professor Tuan Nguyen at UNSW, where he was awarded a doctorate of science for his research.

He’d presented to St Vincent’s hoping for a job in the kitchen. Asked by Ramsay if he had any experience as a kitchen hand, he fibbed: “Two years.”

He got the job and began work the next day.

But two weeks later and wracked with guilt over his white lie, he confessed to Ramsay his clumsy subterfuge.

“‘I knew’,” he recalls her saying, “‘I could see from your CV you’d only been in Australia a few months, but I wanted to give you a chance.’”

More than three decades later, Mrs Ramsay is long gone, but her kitchen protégé has remained.

Nguyen is now a principal investigator with the Garvan Institute’s Dubbo osteoporosis epidemiology study, the longest-running study of osteoporosis in the world, and which has improved prediction, diagnosis and treatment of bone fractures and researched the underlying genetic factors which contribute to the disease.

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“I was interested to study and to research,” Nguyen says, “but I wanted to do something that helped the man on the street. ‘What difference are you making to someone’s life?’ I always asked myself, because that’s what important.”

Nguyen fled Vietnam by boat in 1981 as communist oppression, particularly of the educated classes (he was an engineering graduate) constricted freedoms in his homeland.

Months before, his older brother had boarded a boat with 20 others – none of whom were ever heard from again, presumed lost to the ocean, “so my brother and sister and I knew how dangerous our journey would be”.

“But we had no choice, we could not live in Vietnam.”

Their little boat spent four days and three nights at sea before washing up in a fishing village in southern Thailand, from where he was taken to a processing centre, where after an interview in which he said he wanted to go to Australia because he wanted to see a kangaroo, he was accepted for resettlement.

Nguyen was one of thousands accepted for resettlement as part of a global effort to assist displaced Vietnamese refugees, the forerunner to the US-led Orderly Departure Program which ultimately resettled more than 600,000 refugees in 40 countries over 17 years.

Arriving in a country he knew little about, and with all of $30 of settlement assistance in his pocket, Nguyen remembers the confusion of his first days in Australia.

But he also remembers – acutely still – the liberation of being able to travel freely without being monitored or questioned as to what books he was reading, to whom he was speaking or where he was going.

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Nguyen had a bare few words of English – and his first efforts to learn were haphazard. He found a Dymocks bookstore in Sydney and tried to ask for an Oxford English Dictionary, but couldn’t pronounce the title.

Eventually – by writing down the name of the book he wanted – he got the dictionary and from it, taught himself his new language.

He says he’s been learning ever since. After several years holding down two jobs – “working day and night” – he went back to university, earning a masters degree in applied statistics from Macquarie University, followed by a PhD in medicine from UNSW.

And, after 27 years working on the Dubbo study, Nguyen is now a principal investigator. His new UNSW doctorate – the university’s highest academic honour – recognises his contribution to global efforts to understand and counter osteoporosis.

Nguyen was unable to return to Vietnam for nearly 18 years, but he is now a regular visitor and a contributor to that country’s medical research. He has established a research laboratory in Ton Duc Thang University and was a founder of the Vietnamese Osteoporosis Society.

“But here in Australia, this is my second home, and for my children their first home. Without Australia I don’t have a career. In Vietnam, I might be a buffalo guy – with my Republic of Vietnam background – if I could have stayed, I might have a few fields and a buffalo.”

There is a renewed focus in Australia around assisting refugees (who’ve often fled persecution that involves interrupting their education) quickly into education and employment in their newly adopted country.

A 2011 study commissioned by the immigration department found that, 18 months after arriving in Australia, 43% of humanitarian entrants remain unemployed.

But the same research found “the overwhelming picture, when one takes the longer-term perspective of changes over the working lifetime of humanitarian program entrants and their children, is one of considerable achievement and contribution”.

A recent parliamentary motion from Labor member Tim Watts proposes increasing Australia’s privately sponsored migration intake, under which business or community groups are able to sponsor a refugee to come to Australia, promising assistance and support.

Since 2013, approved organisations have been allowed to sponsor a small number of refugees to Australia, a total of 500 annually.

From next month a new Community Support Program will be implemented, offering up to 1,000 visas annually. But the program will be offset against the government’s humanitarian intake of 13,750: for every refugee sponsored privately, the government accepts one fewer.

Watts’s motion, which also proposes de-linking private from government sponsorship, has been supported by Liberal MP Russell Broadbent and by the Nationals’ Andrew Broad, who has proposed increasing the figure tenfold, to 10,000 a year.

The economy of the Victorian town of Nhill, in Broad’s sprawling electorate of the Mallee, has been revitalised by the arrival of more than 160 Karen refugees from camps on the Thai-Burma border.

But beyond parliamentary motions and government initiatives, refugees are also finding new ways into employment for themselves.

Refugee Talent, established by Syrian refugee Nirary Dacho and former Nauru offshore detention child protection worker Anna Robson, links people from refugee backgrounds with employers looking for people with their skills. They have already found more than 50 people into employment.

Thrive Refugee Enterprise is run by young Afghan Mahir Momand, who offers small loans to new businesses in their earliest stages.

Ignite, run by government-contracted Settlement Services International and based on the Sirolli model, assists nascent refugee-led businesses: it has helped more than 60 businesses in agriculture, construction, hospitality and manufacturing.

Career Seekers assists asylum seekers and refugees, particularly mid-career professionals and university students, with workplace knowledge and connections, placing them into internships and employment, including with government departments and major firms Macquarie, PWC, Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank.

Tim O’Connor from the Refugee Council of Australia tells the Guardian the vast majority of refugees arrive in Australia desperate to work, seeking to provide structure to their new lives and to integrate.

“Leaving your home, your work, your family and friends behind is a great sacrifice. Historically in Australia that sacrifice has extended to the first generations starting here who work several low-skilled jobs, regardless of their skills and experience, to get a foothold in their new country. That sacrifice then pays off when the second generation excel.”

O’Connor says with greater assistance in the difficult first months, refugees can “skip” the generational sacrifice and begin working and contributing to Australian society more quickly.

“The initiative and entrepreneurial spirit that refugees have used to flee, survive and establish themselves in Australia is clear. Australia is one of the world’s great migration success stories, and by providing more opportunities for refugees who come here to start work earlier, every single Australian will benefit.”