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Discussion

Say what??

I have wanted to know what it comes down to when having to deal with languages and the health care system. Of course, there are interpreters for languages, but has anyone ever thought about dialects? My husband is from a state in Mexico where they still speak their native dialect from thousands of years ago; there is no written way for it and each town mixes up the lingo. Are there translators for these dialects that I'm sure there are others out there as well? Who translates in that case? Family members? Love to hear some feedback!

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    I am too lazy to to look up and cite policy. I am sure the Joint Commission for Hospital Accreditation policy is that hospitals are required to have an interpreter and it cannot not be a relative. There is an interpreter phone service hospitals can pay for.

    In your specific case there is a good chance the phone service may not be able to to help. Everbody just has to adapt, improvise, and overcome. Use the family if no one else is available. In life and death emergencies consent is implied when the patient cannnot speak for themselves.

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    I am trying to remember what my facility did when we had a person from China with a very specific dialect. I believe that unfortunately we used family. The person was also very hard of hearing which made using a telephonic interpreter impossible.

    Like the poster above me mentioned, it's not the best solution but we didn't have many options.

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    We have the face to face interpreters, on video connection (great for our deaf patients with ASL as well!). Just have to place the phone call on the screen and bingo! instant translators there.

    As far as the dialect goes, he may just have to go with a basic Mexican Spanish interpreter.

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    • Admin

    We once had a patient from a remote Asian area where they spoke a very distinct dialect that was not at all like the language spoken in the rest of the country. The Cyraphone translator for the language of the country, who knew many of the more common dialects, was unable to translate. We had no option whatsoever other than to use family.

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    I remember a patient in clinicals that no one could commmunicate with. Weirdly even her husband. She spoke an odd dialect. We mostly used gestures and prayed she understood. There wasn't another option that we could find. None of the phone translators understood her though they did him. This was in my childbearing clinical so obviously they communicated on one level.

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