Medical Translation for Immigrants

Many people feel that immigrants deserve medical translation, as an entitlement. Many advanced nations make such translation compulsory and provide interpreters for patients who don’t understand the local language, without any additional cost to the patient, who is an immigrant to the country. It is felt that this small but essential service might not add much to the medical burden. Of course, some foreigners can also learn the local language, but there might be many patients who need assistance due to their limited knowledge of the language of the immigrant country.
For instance, even people who speak very fluent English might find the language spoken by healthcare professionals incoherent, due to the accent. The problem can be confounded if you are immigrant in a country like Spain or Greece and don’t have the vaguest idea regarding the language. In previous days, the common practice in such a situation would be to take recourse to a family member or friend who could do the medical translation for you, but this did not always guarantee the degree of accuracy in the translation, as the person employed for the purpose might not be very familiar with medical terminology, although having a good grasp of the language in general.
Things are changing rapidly today, with professionals entering the field and providing such services to immigrant patients with limited language knowledge. Such services are also provided to hospitals and to the immigrants by means of remote services by phone or by video conference, with the advent of such technology. Millions of immigrants living in English-speaking countries do not speak the language well and are in need of such translation. Such kind of language barriers between the patients and medical professionals can result in risky or wrong communication and poor outcomes for the patient concerned.
There are many organizations producing remote video medical translation and interpretation, according to the needs of the medical world. In times of emergencies, the immigrant is not able to communicate his pain and get the appropriate immediate relief measures due to the language barrier, resulting in disastrous consequences in many cases. Hence, healthcare organizations definitely need to take up medical translation services for their immigrant patients. This may also require the translation of important medical documents and explanation of benefits to the immigrant, as many of these are usually prepared in the local language.
It is also important to recruit certified interpreters for such medical translation, using people who are well acquainted with medical terminology as well as those who are sensitive to the ethics of the medical profession with regard to respecting the patient’s privacy. Many hospitals also conduct courses and exams to test the competency level of such interpreters and translators.

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