Language barrier to Aboriginal health (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Language barrier to Aboriginal health
24-Nov-2005

by Eleanor Limprecht
http://news.australiandoctor.com.au/articles/8b/0c03898b.asp 

A critical lack of communication between Aboriginal patients and doctors
has sparked calls for a greater number of specially trained Indigenous
health interpreters in doctors surgeries.

The Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health (CRCAH) and
Charles Darwin University highlighted the seriously underestimated
level of misunderstanding between Aboriginal patients and health
professionals in their Sharing the True Stories report, launched last
week.

Based on fours years of research in Arnhem Land in the NT, the reports
authors said they found a widespread lack of understanding by health
professionals of Aboriginal language and culture that led to
compromised quality of care and lowered patients ability to make
informed choices about their health.

The research was done in collaboration with Aboriginal speakers of the
Yolngu Matha language, who often had very different ways of
understanding their bodies, health, disease and treatment than health
professionals.

Currently, there are Aboriginal health interpreter services only in the
NT and in the Kimberley region of WA.

CEO of the research centre, Mr Mick Gooda, said other state governments
ought to become more serious about offering Aboriginal health
interpreter services.

Solutions lie with better training of medical staff, particularly
doctors, and the use of fully trained interpreters so Aboriginal
patients arent burdened with trying to understand often complex medical
advice in a language of which they have limited understanding, he said.