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Hospital tackles language barrier

A simple communication tool invented by the Buddhist Tzu-chi General Hospital in Hualien has helped Aboriginal patients, many of whom do not speak Mandarin, to communicate more effectively with hospital staff.

The innovation was highlighted at the annual Taiwan Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care yesterday in Taipei.

Staff in the hospital's intensive care unit merged graphics and phrases in a romanized form of the Amis and Truku aboriginal tribal languages on cards to facilitate communication between staff and patients.

According to deputy head nurse of the unit Chin Hsueh-chen（金雪珍 ), about half of the patients at the hospital are Aboriginal, with Amis and Truku forming the majority.

Most have difficulty communicating with hospital staff due to the language barrier, she said, adding that only two out of thirty nurses in the unit speak the tribes' languages.

To resolve the situation, Chin said a questionnaire was issued to patients' family and medical staff who speak the languages to collect a list of useful words. Once this had been done hospital staff, patients' families and priests from nearby churches helped to transcribe the words into romanized versions.

The vocabulary includes words related to patients' physical needs such as drinking water and medical treatments such as injections.

In addition to language teaching sessions, staff have been required to memorize one word a day both in Amis and Truku, up to a total of 25. In order to help them learn the vocabulary, Chin said she even marked Zhuyin next to the words in daily e-mails to her fellow colleagues.

Chin said that the combination of graphics and words mean that patients and staff can communicate with each other more effectively.

The unit has been promoting the usage of the communication cards since Nov. 2004, she said.
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