A person’s language is in many ways a “second skin”: a natural possession of every normal human being, with which we use to express our hopes and ideals, articulate our thoughts and values, explore our experience and customs, and construct our society and the laws that govern it. It is through language that we function as human beings in an ever-changing world. The right to use the official languages of our choice has therefore been recognised in our Bill of Rights, and our Constitution acknowledges that the languages of our people are a resource that should be harnessed (DR BS NGUBANE, 2003)

We treat patients of all ages, races, religions, gender and language preferences, but we as clinicians can’t provide a secure environment while treating some of these patients. We are not equipped to provide some of these randomised patients with treatment within their basic human rights.

According to the National Patients’ rights charter, there are two rights for patients that are continuously violated. The first one is the right to “health information in the language of their choice,” (HPCSA, 2008) and the second one, the right to “Confidentiality and privacy concerning health care issues and treatment.” (HPCSA, 2008)

I have witnessed and I have been in a few treatment sessions where a patient prefers a language I cannot speak and an outsider had to come and translate. All of these translators where either another patients in the same hospital ward or a domestic cleaner. The hospital I worked at didn’t have their own professional translator, and these specific patients had their basic human rights violated because we couldn’t provide private treatment in their preferred language and we couldn’t keep their private medical diagnosis and information secure from outside sources.

Another concern would be, the patients don’t know or don’t understand these basic human rights from the National Patients’ rights charter, because they don’t seem to have a great issue with the fact that a third party is involved in their treatment session, or at least the translators don’t mention any concerns or frustrations from the patients point of view in the treatment session. I want to assume the hospital wouldn’t add professional translators to their staff and payroll, because there has never been a formal ethical complaint from the patients’ side to the hospital so why would they pay extra salaries for professional staff members when they already have cleaners that can do the translating?

I can understand that there is possibly not a high demand for a language translators in government settings, most of the population is able to either speak Afrikaans or English, but basic human rights for the minority of patients are being violated and so far in my limited time at this hospital nothing was done to correct this ethical problem. Now this could be because of multiple reasons, but the most important question to ask is rather if the hospital staff or management knows of this concern and ethical violation of patients’ rights according to the National Patients’ rights chapel and are they willing to support my view that incorporating a third party, that is not a health professional, to overcome the language barrier is a violation of two specific patient rights?

The University of Stellenbosch has incorporated isiXhosa language studies as part of their Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences curriculum since 2012. IsiXhosa Clinical Communication (XCC) course was initiated not only to cater for the students’ language requirements, but also to comply with the South African Constitution multilingualism mandate. Another significant rationale for isiXhosa teaching and learning was also to enable students to conduct their clinical consultations with isiXhosa monolingual speakers in an intelligible manner and overall improve quality of health care (Stellenbosch, 2019).

Maybe it’s possible to start formulating a solution for language barriers within clinical settings from undergraduate students and not solely within Government staff. I believe the solution lies within both the tertiary undergraduate programs and our Government health care settings. If our undergraduate health professional students are introduced to basic isiXhosa language phrases it would be possible to conduct a private consultation and treatment session, but isiXhosa is not the only language barriers we will come across, we have 11 official languages within South Africa and basic patients human rights confirms that we should be able to provide treatment within the patients preferred language of choice, therefore the solution from the Government health care settings to formally staff professional language translators that would be able to speak and translate most foreign languages whiles protecting personal information of the patients.

References

DR BS NGUBANE, M. (2003). National language policy and framework. Department of arts and culture (pp. 1- 19). Pretoria : Governemnt of the Western Cape; Department of arts and culture.

HPCSA. (2008). National Patients’ rights charter . Health Professionals Counsil of South Africa (pp. 1-3). Pretoria: Western Cape Governement .

Stellenbosch, U. o. (2019, March). ​​​​Center for Health Professions Education​; IsiXhosa teaching and learning . Retrieved from University of Stellenbosch : https://www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/healthsciences/chpe/learning-teaching-enhancement/isixhosa