Language barrier continues to impact health care delivery

Jan 20, 2017 News

---

Although the Ministry of Public Health has long been gaining international support to help improve its delivery of health care, there are times when it comes with some glaring challenges.
This state of affairs has been amplified by former Minister of Public Health, Dr. George Norton, who recently spoke of the Ministry being faced with a language barrier in some aspects of its delivery of health care.
Norton disclosed, for instance, that there are “language barriers exhibited by some Cuban doctors in their interaction with patients and even other health care providers. Nurses or other health care providers who have knowledge of Spanish are usually requested when the difficulty arises”.
But there aren’t always nurses on duty who have the language capacity to help when such situations arise.
Moreover, there have been numerous complaints that have been forthcoming over the years from patients who have been affected by the language barrier dilemma. In fact, some patients have even shared concerns of the possibility of being misdiagnosed if the non-English speaking medical professionals are incapable of understanding when they explain their ailment.
As part of its efforts to address the evident language barrier between Cuban doctors and local patients, the Ministry had some years ago developed a plan to address this challenge. This was in light of several concerns that were raised, suggesting that the Cuban doctors who have been supporting the operation of the health care system were not always able to relate efficiently with patients.
Although health officials had back then admitted that there are some Cuban doctors who are not efficient in their communication, attempts were made to attribute the state of affairs to the fact that the foreigners are usually more versed in Standard English, and therefore could not relate to the rural dialect.
Another former Minister under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic Government, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran, who had worked closely with the Cuban medical programme, said “because they (Cubans) were taught proper English, sometimes communicating with our people could be a challenge. When they hear some of our creolese they sometimes question if we really speak English…So this is a mutual difficulty,” Dr. Ramsaran had explained.
In working to address the concerns though, Dr Ramsaran had asserted that “what we do know is that the doctors who are selected to come here must have certain language competency before they get here. A significant portion of them have worked in other countries like South Africa as well as some small islands in the Caribbean, and we are aware that some have good language skills,” he had pointed out.
He had, however, disclosed that there have been isolated cases where patients mistake Cuban technicians, who are not very fluent in English, for doctors.
But according to Minister Norton, who functioned as Minister of Public Health for the past two years, the public health sector is forced to continue to depend on foreign expertise, because “there is a limited availability of the number of specialists to fill the gaps”.
Added to this, he said that the “expansion of services within the regions and nursing staff are not catered for to provide those services”.
At the end of 2015, there were a total of 651 Government Medical Officers (GMOs) in the public health system. Last year an additional 93 GMOs were added, bringing the total as at the end of last year to 774, Minister Norton disclosed.
A total of 838 nurses were in the public health system in 2015, while in 2016 an additional 130 nurses were added, bringing the current total to 968. There are approximately 2,587 public health care workers providing services throughout Guyana. But these are evidently not enough to cater to the delivery of universal health care.
However, the language barrier has not been the only challenge that the Public Health Ministry is plagued with in its quest to improve primary health care.
Among these, according to Dr. Norton, is the accommodation for GMOs and basic living conditions in the hinterland regions. However, the Ministry of Public Health through the department of Regional Health Services has been collaborating with the Ministry of Communities so that these challenges can be alleviated.
Minister Norton, who at the start of this year was re-assigned to deal with Social Cohesion, continues to have a very avid interest in the delivery of health care and has already been plotting ways in which he can help to improve its delivery through his new Social Cohesion portfolio.

---

---