How does the language barrier affect Medical Tourism?
The history of medical tourism goes back thousands of years to ancient cultures that understood the healing benefits of mineral thermal springs and holy temple pools, leading to people traveling for treatment to spa towns and mineral waters, as well as health care itself. Medical tourism has expanded in terms of travelers and destinations since then.
Today, largely because of affordable, reliable health care, people fly for medical services. That being said, developed nations have become popular patient destinations.
Interpreters and linguists are a critical tool for ensuring accurate medical understanding, avoiding injuries, and making informed decisions for patients traveling to India for months at a time for medical treatments. Inadequate communication between patients and medical professionals can complicate interactions, lead to potential delays in successful care, and even lead to quality differences. Medical professionals are increasingly realizing the significance of bridging the language gap and how it can save medical resources by motivating individuals to obtain timely medical treatment.
Most patients come from non-English-speaking countries, making their visit to India challenging in their day-to-day affairs when it comes to engaging with medical practitioners and seeking language help even outside the hospital.
Although major hospitals provide patients and their families with interpreters, the statistics may be small. Arabic, Russian, and French are some of the important language interpreters that are needed for (for patients from countries like Mozambique, Congo). More significantly, in India, there is a desperate need for ethical interpreters to assist patients during their visit. Although many travelers rely on translations from Google, it is full of hiccups and proves to be a frustrating experience when it comes to understanding medical terminology.
Language gaps have a huge influence on healthcare costs and quality. They typically arise where all parties do not share a native language between healthcare providers and patients.1 Regardless of language barriers, healthcare providers are expected to offer high-quality healthcare to all their patients that adhere to the values of human rights and equality.
Some healthcare institutions offer interpreter services in order to address language barriers, but these services face critical challenges in terms of access and financial burden. Previous studies have shown that most healthcare facilities have limited access to or no resources at all for interpreter services. The use of interpreter services leads to increased patient satisfaction among patients with language barriers and enhanced patient care. The services of interpreters are significantly linked to increased medical visits, prescription medications by doctors, and the receipt of preventive services by patients. The availability of interpreter facilities, however, also increases the duration and length of preventative services among patients. However, providing interpreter services also increases the length and cost of physician visits.
Not only in the United States or Uk now India is also providing interpreter services to break the language barrier between the patient and the doctors or medical officials, as of we don't know about such companies who are offering these services but IMS ( Indian Medical Services) provide this kind of services to the tourist from different countries
0 Comments