Health
Care Practitioners (see
also our Health Care
Practitioner Resources Page)
A
large number of the clients Language Ventures serves are Health
Care Practioners/Providers. This is where the consequences of languages
barriers -- between "clients" and "providers"
-- are the most serious. Lack of language services in a Health Care
environment creates a barrier to, and diminishes the quality of
care the patients receive, and can lead to catastrophic (and avoidable)
problems:
- Diagnosis
is an ordeal when a patient can’t describe symptoms or a
family history.
- A mother
can’t understand why her baby has a fever and what she needs
to do.
- Surgery is
postponed because the pre-operative instructions were not understood.
The list is endless.
- Medication
instructions are not understood; therefore patients don't get
healthy.
Health care practitioners are coming under more and more pressure to conform to
the laws requiring oral and written language assistance for their clients who
do not speak English.They are are now in the position of having to determine which
language services are most appropriate for their practice based on their type
of setting, size, frequency of contact with English-challenged clients, and the
variety of languages. All too often medical settings are not equipped to deal
with such problems.
Interpreters
are an indispensible link when Health Care Practitioners and their
patients do not speak the same language. In addition to
interpreting, Language Ventures offers related services that can
greatly improve your organization's ability to overcome language
barriers. These include:
- Training
bilingual staff to interpret correctly
- Teaching
staff how to work with interpreters.
- Assessing
and analysing the client base
- Identifying
the main languages
- Identifying
staff resources
- Determining
material for translation, and
-
Establishing cost options.
Please
also read our Health Care Practitioner Resources
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