Language interpretation conditions and boundaries during emergency health care

by Josephe Angelo Tridindia Interpretation Services

Abstract

Due to the increase of migrant population globally, the need for organizing interpretation services arises in emergency healthcare to provide equitable high-quality care. The concerned study aims to describe interpretation practices in multilingual emergency health service institutions and explore the impact of organizational and institutional context along with the possible consequences of different approaches towards interpretation.

Language Interpretation

Methods

According to a study, forty-six healthcare professionals were intentionally recruited from different organizational levels in ambulance service and psychiatric and somatic emergency care units. Some data were collected between December 2014 and April 2015 through focus group and individual interviews, analyzed by content analysis.

Results

Basically, the concerned organization of interpreters was based on patient’s health status, context of emergency care and provides easy access to interpreter service. It was found that differences existed between workplaces for the use of interpreters like in somatic emergency care bilingual healthcare staff and family members were used to a limited extent. And in psychiatric emergency care, the rule was to use professional interpreters on the spot.

When it comes to ambulance service, persons available at that time like family and friends were used. And similarities were observed in hiring a professional interpreter, mainly based on informal workplace routines sometimes on formal guidelines and national laws but knowledge of existing laws was not so well. The right decision would be to approach a linguistically competent interpreter possessing professional attitude, and organizational aspects like appropriate time, technical and social environment. They wish for development of better procedures for prompt access to professional interpreters at the workplace regardless of organizational context, and education of interpreters and users.

As a conclusion, role of interpreters was identified by health professionals, based on the patients’ health status. They try to deliver as fast and individualized care as possible based on humanistic values. Errors in organizational routines are required to be rectified. Not only this, transcultural awareness is required to achieve the aim of person-centered and equal healthcare.

To be very honest, clear formal guidelines for interpreters in emergency healthcare is required to be developed. It’s important to cater the demands for future development of prompt access to interpreters and education of interpreters and users.

In a nutshell, the need for express language interpretation services is obvious in case of emergency health care. Just knock at the door of a credible firm dealing with the same and have access to quality and fast interpretation services soon.