Healthcare can be overwhelming. You don't have to navigate it alone.
Tri Tides is your healthcare companion — helping patients, families, carers and healthcare professionals navigate every stage of the healthcare journey with practical guidance, clear communication and culturally safe support.
How can we help today?
Tell us what's happening — not what product you're looking for.
I'm supporting a loved one
Guidance for the person carrying it all.
I'm going to hospital
What to expect, and how to be understood.
I'm navigating aged care
Understand the system before you walk in.
I need communication support
Bedside communication boards and translation.
I want to understand my rights
Plain-language rights and advocacy tools.
I'm looking for practical guidance
Trackers, checklists and templates that keep you organised.
Built from lived experience.
Tri Tides was created beside a mother living with Parkinson's, and a grandfather in aged care — watching how easily a person can slip out of view in their own care, especially when language or illness makes them harder to understand. So we built the guide, and the tools, we wish we'd had.
Five ways Tri Tides walks beside you.
Navigation
Guidance through every stage of the journey, always free.
Education
Plain-language guides so you know what to ask.
Communication
Bedside boards and translation tools — TALK.
Connections
Trusted referrals, never pay-to-rank.
Practical Tools
Trackers, logs and templates for advocacy.
TALK — bilingual healthcare communication, one pillar of Tri Tides.
Book a pilot →When a patient can't explain the pain, TALK helps you understand.
TALK gives hospitals, aged care and community health teams bilingual communication boards, posters and translation tools right at the bedside — Tongan-first, reviewed by native speakers. Always on, even when an interpreter line isn't.
When language fails, safety fails.
When a patient and a clinician can't understand each other, the risks aren't soft. They show up as missed symptoms, delayed care, and patients who leave before they should.
Australians use a language other than English at home — 22% of the population, and rising (ABS Census 2021).
speaks English not well, or not at all — the patients most likely to be misunderstood when it matters (ABS Census 2021).
more likely that patients with limited English suffer physical harm from a medical adverse event.
For Pacific communities the gap is sharper still. Tongan-, Samoan- and Fijian-born Australians are admitted to hospital at higher rates and carry a heavy chronic-disease burden — and health services themselves name low health literacy and communication barriers as key drivers. Among Tongan-born Australians who speak a language other than English at home, nearly one in five doesn't speak English fluently.
At the bedside, interpreter access is often delayed, and staff fall back on family members to translate — what the research calls a "vexed solution." Too often, Pacific patients are left misunderstood in the moments that matter most.
Communication that's always at the bedside.
TALK puts clear, culturally accurate Pacific-language communication in your team's hands the moment they need it — on a screen and on the wall.
TALK Translation
Instant Pacific-language phrases for paramedics, nurses, doctors and community workers — built for emergency and ward settings.
Cards & Posters
Colour-coded communication cards and bilingual posters for the bedside and the ward wall — no device required.
- Hospital Communication Card pack — 20 colour-coded cards
- A4 posters for clinical and emergency settings
- Bilingual English / Tongan boards, community reviewed
- Need a poster in your community's language? Request a translation →
Beginning with Tongan.
TALK communication boards are now available in Tongan — developed with input from the Pacific community to support clearer communication between patients, families and healthcare staff, including where language, illness, disability, stress or a medical emergency makes being understood harder.
We work with aged care and healthcare teams to put these resources into practice. To bring TALK resources into your organisation, request TALK resources →
Expanding carefully, alongside Pacific communities.
- Current Tongan resources
- Clinical and emergency communication boards
- Basic needs and comfort requests
- Pain and symptom communication tools
- Family and support person communication boards
- Cultural and patient-centred communication resources
A few words to get started.
A simple starter set of everyday Tongan words and phrases — for staff, families and anyone wanting to connect a little more warmly. Grouped to make them easy to find.
People & pronouns
Question words
Everyday verbs
Places
Time
Nature
Food & drink
The body
Common things
Describing words
Colours
Small words
These everyday words are a starting point and are being reviewed with our Tongan community. For clinical communication, always use the TALK clinical resources and a qualified interpreter where needed.
Built for the people who need it.
Hospitals
Clear bedside communication with Pacific patients across emergency and ward settings.
Aged care
Daily understanding for residents who are most comfortable in their first language.
Paramedics
Fast, critical phrases when every second and every word counts.
Community & social services
Workers supporting Pacific families with confidence and cultural respect.
Health & education staff
Anyone communicating with Pacific communities and their families.
Families
Helping a loved one who struggles to be understood in care.
Helping a family member who struggles to communicate?
Start here →Built from lived experience, made for clinical reality.
TALK didn't start in a boardroom — it started beside my mother. As Parkinson's slowly made it harder for her to speak and be heard, I saw how easily a patient can slip out of view in their own care. TALK exists so that doesn't happen — to her, or to anyone.
Lived experience
I built TALK while caring for my mother through Parkinson's — as her voice grew quieter and being understood grew harder, across both her illness and her language. That's the standard TALK holds to: every patient stays seen, heard and understood, in their own words.
Mapped to the standards you're accountable to
TALK supports NSQHS Standard 6 (Communicating for Safety) and Standard 2 (Partnering with Consumers). An NSQHS-mapped business case is available on request.
Linguistic accuracy, verified
Every translation is reviewed and signed off by native speakers in the community before it goes to a patient. Accuracy isn't optional in care.
Safe, private, accessible
Clear privacy practices under the Australian Privacy Act, a published clinical-aid disclaimer, and accessible design — so the tool itself never becomes another barrier to being understood.
Run a TALK pilot on one ward.
See what changes when your team can be understood. Low-risk, time-boxed, and built to give your Quality & Safety team real evidence, mapped to NSQHS actions.
What a pilot looks like
Scope
One ward or service, your highest-need Pacific language, over a focused 4–6 weeks.
Set up
App access plus a starter pack of cards and posters, ready for the bedside.
Run
Your team uses TALK in real care. Minimal training, minimal disruption.
Review
We review uptake and staff feedback together, mapped to NSQHS actions.