Use of English language in hospitals

[Lilith7]

If they can manage to have interpreters for staff/patient communication then surely it can't be much more difficult to provide adequate means of communication between medical staff who speak different languages, whatever that might be. And really if they balk at possible cost, then they might want to consider the cost of possible consequences, & not neccessarily just  the  financial cost.

What a ridiculous concept. Pair an interpreter to every staff member who lacks basic communication skills in English? Who do you suggest should pay for all those extra health system related employees?

An interpreter can be arranged in advance for non-English patient consultations but this presents added expense and delays to a health system that is coming apart at the seams as it is. How about we ensure that all staff have sufficient English speaking and comprehension skills which should be part and parcel of their immigration terms and job description? Seems a lot cheaper to enforce existing protocols than to throw more money at the health sector payroll, especially as the government is busy cutting the guts out of that sector currently.

I don't think its ridiculous to have sufficient staff capable of translating when someone's life may be at stake. It needn't be a person who is present in the hospital, there could instead be a roster of people with the needed skills who are on call & able to translate via phone or PC; this is used  for translation purposes by Oz customs & appears to be working reasonably well.

Therefore it seems reasonable that it could work here in a slightly different area.

But yes, the reasonable & sensible solution is clearly to employ staff who actually can speak English. And yet, they do seem to not be doing that for whatever reason.