A recent report revealed that mistakes and misdiagnoses in the medical field are resulting from family members being used as interpreters. In one particular case, a woman missed a crucial opportunity to catch her cancer early because she relied on her son to translate for her. Dr. Shanti Karupiah shared that sometimes patients might not divulge certain symptoms to their family member or partner out of embarrassment, which can lead to misdiagnosis. Dr. Karupiah went on to explain that “if you can’t speak the same language, it’s hard to get appropriate care. If a misdiagnosis is made, it can be the difference between life and death.”
The report was done by the Equality and Social Justice Committee, which recommended that translators be provided to patients to help avoid missing potentially harmful health conditions. The committee also called on the Welsh government to end the reliance on family members as interpreters in medical settings, as it is often wholly inappropriate. The report went on to suggest that inadequacies in language interpretation could potentially be a breach of human rights.
Furthermore, the report concluded that healthcare was not the only public service failing certain ethnic minority backgrounds in Wales. There were also calls to address issues in education and criminal justice. The Welsh government has set an aim for an anti-racist Wales by 2030, and the report presented ten recommendations to improve the Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan. One of these recommendations included strengthening efforts to eliminate family members as interpreters in medical settings.
A spokesperson for the Welsh government stated that they had recognition for the importance of reducing instances where family members act as interpreters. They went on to state that the Welsh Interpretation and Translation Service provides professional interpreters and translators for the public sector. They also disclosed that they are working with Public Health Wales to explore the feasibility of a directory of interpreters
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