Embedding communication, interpretation in health delivery

Providing quality health care must not only be about constructing state-of-the-art facilities that are manned by reputable physicians and surgeons.

While this is a desirable goal, other indicators that will help expand services to the people should be considered.

Howbeit, some of these issues, including efficient communication systems, have been neglected or simply ignored.  This article intends to highlight the relevance of integrating indigenous languages into the healthcare delivery system.

It is important to state that integrating Indigenous languages into health delivery processes will immensely benefit folks who cannot read or write the official national language.

The point is that one’s status, including the ability to speak a particular language, must not determine the quality of service being provided by caregivers.

The fact that one cannot express himself or herself in a particular language does not mean that he or she must be denied quality health care.

That is to say that excluding patients in health decision-making because of their inability to express themselves in the language used by health professionals is not the right thing to do. 

As scholar Peter van den Berg pointed out, any miscommunication – due to language barriers – is likely to result in life-threatening misdiagnosis and mismanagement.

In other words, when clients are not able to speak the language utilised by health workers, they may not be able to articulate their concerns to them.

In such situations, misdiagnoses may occur, potentially adding to patients’ uncertainty and affecting the management of the condition. It could also lead to emotional stress.

Such patients are likely to experience dissatisfaction with services rendered by health professionals. This was seen in a scenario played out in 2021 when a client confronted a nurse who spoke to her in a language she did not understand.

The incident reportedly occurred in Sogakope in the Volta Region. As the client asserted, the facility should have paired “Ewe-speaking nurses with those [nurses] who did not understand Ewe”.

It is instructive to note that the majority of the Sogakope residents are Ewes. As such, the client had expected health professionals in the facility to use Ewe as the medium of interaction between the two parties.

Surprisingly, the communication was conducted in a language that was alien to the client. The resultant disagreement was published by several social media entities. 

Challenges

overcome such challenges, health institutions have resorted to using informal interpreters. However, studies conducted by Moissac and Bowen revealed that using informal interpreters may hurt the ability of clients to communicate exactly what they might have intended to say to health workers.

The authors, thus, signify the need to use indigenous languages in Ghana’s health system.

It is certain that if health workers cannot understand their clients, it could lead to misinterpretation, a development that could affect the effectiveness of care clients may receive from the care providers. 

Ideally, a nurse gathers information from a client then a physician scrutinises this information to arrive at a diagnosis.

A physician who understands the language spoken by the client may correct anomalies detected. If the physician does not understand the language, the incongruity in the communication could result in misdiagnosis.

The challenge of expressing oneself in the consulting room is, therefore, a serious issue that ought to be addressed.

Sometimes, informal interpreters are used, but this approach has its challenges, such as the issue of trust and accuracy in the interpretation of diagnostic results. Any time there is a difference in the mother tongue of patients and that of health providers, the situation can lead to poor health outcomes.

This is why we would like to enlist stakeholders in the health sector to prioritise stronger communication and translation practices in their deliverables.

Further, we would like to plead with the Ministry of Health (MOH) to consider developing health-specific language policies, which will outline the qualifications required for a medical interpreter.

The ministry should also identify and train healthcare professionals who could serve as potential interpreters. That way, we can improve the quality of care given to our people.

The writers are academics at the University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ho, Volta Region.