Languages In Hospital

Hospital Words

I once sat in on two Kiwi doctors discussing the medications they were taking with them on a tramping trip. They were planning for the medical possibilities and dangers facing a group of half a dozen trampers.

The conversation made sense to me only occasionally, even though it was in English. The point is that it was a specialised topic, calling for a particular form of English. I didn’t feel excluded, just relieved to know that one aspect of care and planning was under control.

And so to language use in hospitals, where a row has broken out over people of various ethnic groups using their own languages at times. Language use often excites people’s passions and regularly results in very misleading interpretations, so this seems a good time to air out several issues.

One pointedly obvious item is that staff and patients of the same ethnicity or language background should surely be entitled to discuss matters in a language of their choice. And in the same breath, it is reasonable for staff to talk to each other in their own languages. On top of which, bilinguals and multilinguals regularly “switch codes” from one language to another, during any given day, using their specialised vocabulary in different languages, including English.

Beyond that, we should recognise that hospitals and the medical profession have regular, well-established processes for keeping patients informed on their condition. From my own experience and others', that’s exactly what happens, with a high level of open communication and accountability.

But the issue that excites people is speaking in front of a patient in an unfamiliar tongue. I suggest a bit of patience. It isn’t essential to hospital care that patients listen in on all conversations about them or other hospital matters.

Meanwhile, it’s likely that professional staff can safeguard and enhance medical care by using their own languages, e.g., for clarifying situations among each other, planning necessary next steps, organising medications.

While it’s impressive that some staff can function in two (or more) different languages, their own communication is presumably at its best in an original mother tongue. In a high-stress work environment like a hospital, it can be a relief of tension to switch to a familiar tongue for parts of the day’s work.

Language and culture regularly play into social developments, so there’s a relevant context here to consider. As a nation, we lack the breadth of many other countries that routinely use and accept a mix of different languages, as illustrated by a visitor from Borneo on an English language course, asked how many languages he spoke. Six, he replied matter-of-factly. It was just his way of life, and that’s the case for many countries around the world.

Historically, Te reo and NZ Sign Language only became official languages very recently, while English, a “de facto official language,” is assumed to be the language of use, despite the country becoming much more diverse. But we’re good at being insular, so other groups and languages regularly get little support and active resistance.

This tendency has only got worse, with the Coalition government denigrating use of Māori in different settings and ministries. There’s a message here. Amongst other issues, it opens the door to English-only viewpoints, adds to a narrowing world view, and intensifies resistance to other languages around us.

As a result, we should be willing to ask about the circumstances of complaints in hospitals, specifically whether the objections are good reason for administrators to send out rulings to staff to use English only and avoid other languages.

The whole situation is made worse by the callous way we have treated temporary and long-term migrants. Quite clearly, we depend greatly on migrant doctors, nurses and other professionals throughout the health care system, not to mention casuals in the hospitality sector.

But during the pandemic, and after, we abandoned many of these people, kicked out loads of them, and made it institutionally difficult for incomers to get a base here. We have invited nurses, for instance, to apply and migrate, only to put their lives on hold by suddenly finding there’s no positions available after all.

We have no moral right to continue in this vein. New Zealand lacks a mature, welcoming face to other peoples, languages and. cultures. Now’s our chance. A touch of gratitude wouldn’t hurt either.

Dr David Cooke previously worked in applied linguistics and language education at tertiary education level in NZ and Canada

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