Health and
Social Care Services I: Issues
Raised
Whilst
many participants have had good
experiences within the health and
social care services and praised the
staff and treatment they had received, a
number of serious issues were
raised.
Communication
Issues
Strand 1: Face to
face communication between service users
and practitioners
Need for provision of
professional Sylheti interpreters deemed
very important.
- Members
of the community have been ill
themselves or had children and
relatives who suffered illness
and not known what was happening,
what the illness was, how serious
it was, and what treatment was
being given.
- Often
interpreting had been left to
relatives and even children which
was felt to be inappropriate for
obvious reasons of
confidentiality and
privacy. Untrained
interpreters would not have the
specialist vocabulary needed to
explain health complications.
- Staff
often seemed unaware of the need
for interpreters or how to access
them.
Strand 2: Effective
communication of general information to
the community
The need for
information to be disseminated in an
accessible way
to the community was repeatedly raised.
- Given
that only a minority of the
Sylheti community read written
Bengali, (see language page 5) it
was felt that translation into
Bengali of materials would not
necessarily achieve effective
communication.
- The
preferred method of communication
was information seminars for the
community on specific subjects
with interpreters present.
Another option would be audio
tapes in Sylheti
- This
would include information on
rights and on benefit
entitlements, that have an impact
on health and social well-being.
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