When patients must provide their own interpreters, the healthcare system itself becomes ill. The ensuing social and personal toll is once again being ignored in the name of transient budgetary savings. Read full article.
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США
Local time: 05:20
испанский => английский
+ ...
Unfortunately, this will never happen in the U.S.
Великобритания
Local time: 10:20
португальский => английский
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I can only hope you misunderstood the article, Jeff! Or are you joking?
Италия
Local time: 11:20
итальянский => английский
... when money gets tight, it is the poorer and more marginal sections of society who suffer. You would imagine most middle class citizens either speak Dutch or can afford to pay for an interpreter. Sad news indeed.
Local time: 11:20
испанский => английский
+ ...
I don't know about any other countries, but I don't believe that Spain lays on interpreters either. There are signs up in doctors' surgeries where expats tend to live that if you do not understand Spanish you must be accompanied by a friend or relative who does or hire the services of an interpreter.
If you move to another country, surely you are expected to speak a little of the local lingo...
Испания
Local time: 11:20
испанский => английский
+ ...
I don't know about any other countries, but I don't believe that Spain lays on interpreters either. There are signs up in doctors' surgeries where expats tend to live that if you do not understand Spanish you must be accompanied by a friend or relative who does or hire the services of an interpreter.
If you move to another country, surely you are expected to speak a little of the local lingo...
because it really is a shame when people move to a country and don't learn to communicate in the local language, I do think that there is a difference between being able to say "hola" to your neighbour and having to go to a doctor (which is worrying enough as it is) and being forced to explain your worries/symptoms in a language you have not yet mastered. It's hard enough as it is to understand doctors in your own language, let alone that of another country.
Equally, I think that sometimes people forget that some people do not move to another country out of choice. Think asylum-seekers and people who have risked their lives to go somewhere else on a boat in search of better living conditions.
The people who have moved out of choice probably have the resources to pay for an interpreter to accompany them to the doctor. It is for the people who haven't that it is important that governments provide this.
The same goes for people who are arrested or have to go to court. These people cannot possibly be accurately represented or fight for their rights without access to an interpreter or someone who speaks their language.
As Fiona mentioned, it is the more disadvantaged members of society who stand to lose the most from measures like this.
To me, a government that doesn't provide this service risks violating human rights and doesn't deserve to present itself as the government of an enlightened democratic nation.
I think it's shocking that human rights are continually being eroded on account of money while the fat cats and their cronies who espouse these ideas continue to line their pockets with money they couldn't even spend in a human lifetime.
[Edited at 2013-10-16 11:18 GMT]
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