Interpreting
Page Contents
Why is it important to use interpreters?
It is essential to use interpreters in the following
situations
Our Interpreters
Role
Types of Services
Hours of Operation
Languages Available
Why is it important to use professional interpreters?
- It is NSW Health policy that patients/clients who are from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) or are deaf have a right to access interpreting services.
- NESB and Deaf patients/clients have a right to equal access of the full range of public health care services.
- Interpreters are appropriately qualified, speak the clients' language and English fluently, and have been specifically trained to understand medical terms and are familiar with how the public health system works.
- Medico-legal reasons.
- Consent for surgery and/or treatment must be obtained face to face rather than by telephone otherwise consent may be invalid.
Our CASE STUDIES will give you more reasons!
It is essential that interpreters are present in the following situations:
- Admission
- Medical histories, assessment and treatment plans
- Medical instructions
- Consent for Surgery/Treatments/Research
- Pre & post-operative instructions
- Psychiatric assessment and treatment
- Counselling
- Psychological assessment
- Discharge procedures including instructions, medications, community resources
- Speech therapy
- Sexual assault, physical and emotional abuse
- Terminal illness / bereavement counselling
- Explanation of medication
- Mental Health Review Tribunals and magistrate hearings
Our Interpreters
- Are accredited or recognised by the NAATI (National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters)
- Are required to attend an intensive orientation session, a medical terminology course, regular in-service sessions and other professional courses.
- Are expected to keep up to date about various topics relevant to health care through these sessions.
The Primary Role of the Health Care Interpreter is to:
- Facilitate communication between Health Care Providers and non-English speaking (NESB) as well as deaf clients/patients within SWSLHD.
- Provide culturally relevant information to Health Care Providers on an individual client bases
- Provide basic information to clients in relation to the HLS and health care system.
- Limited client referral for example to social workers and community organisations.
Types of Services
-
On-Site or face to face Interpreting
-
Sign (Auslan) Interpreting
-
Telephone Conferencing
-
Video Interpreting
-
Home Visits
-
Translations
-
Orientation of SWSLHD staff and departmental in-services
-
Cross-Cultural Training Workshops
-
Statistics on Interpreter Utilisation
-
Limited Video Conference Options with Sydney Dental Hospital
Hours of Operation
On-site (including Sign) and Telephone Interpreting Services are available 24 hours a day.
The After Hours Service (24 hours/7 days) is predominantly provided for Obstetric, Emergency and Sexual Assault Services, Mental Health Teams, Intensive/Coronary Care Units and Consent for Emergency Surgery in all departments.
Interpreters are provided for Child Protection Services and any emergency in all departments.
Languages Available
SWSLHD employs staff and sessional interpreters.
Staff Interpreters are available for the following languages:
Arabic, Assyrian, Bosnian, Cantonese, Croatian, Dari (Persian/Farsi), French. Greek, Hebrew, Hokkien, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Khmer (Cambodian), Korean, Lao, Macedonian, Malay, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Teo-Chew, Thai, Tongan, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.
Our Sessional Panel includes the Interpreters speaking the following languages as well as the ones listed above:
Albanian, Amharic (Ethiopia), Armenian, Auslan/Deaf Sign Language, Belorussian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Burmese, Chaldean, Czech, Dinka, Estonian, Fijian, Finnish, Fuzhou, German, Hakka (Chinese), Hakka (Timorese), Hindi, Hungarian, Ilocano, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Maori, Oromo, Pashtu, Punjabi, Romanian, Samoan, Shanghainese, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Swedish, Syriac, Tagalog, Tamil, Tetum and Urdu.
All of the languages above and other minority languages:
Azerbaijani, Cook Island, Creo, Fijian Hindi, Gujarti. Kikamba, Kikongo, Kikuyu, Kineru, Kinganarwanda, Kirundi, Karen, Kurdish, Lingala, Lugana, Madi, Mende, Sidamic, Sudanese, Swahili, and Tingrinya.
