Quote:
Originally Posted by Less
This one had a tickle at my brain cell.
Are we getting translators so that the Doctors can understand the patients?
Or
Are we getting translators so that patients can understand the Doctors?
Or
Are we having to double up on translators so that the Foreign Doctors can be translated into English by one translator, then a second translator explains to the foreign patient in his language and so on.
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When I was in hospital recently in Lancaster I asked all the doctors and medical students where they came from. The countries included India (quite a lot), Malaysia, Pakistan via Chorley or Nelson, Nepal, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Uganda, Zambia and Hungary via America. All spoke good English and no translation was necessary. These were all doctors one saw day to day. Most of the consultants were British as were most of the junior doctors and I did not come across any foreign nurses or domestic staff, not even from Eastern Europe.
A recent programme on More4 about nurses in a Birmingham hospital had more foreign staff as you would expect in a large city but even there there did not appear to be a problem with language.