Language difficulties in an outpatient clinic in Switzerland

This small-scale study attempts to examine the languages spoken in medical consultations during a one-month period in an outpatient clinic in Geneva a nd the ways health professionals use to communicate with their allophone pa tients, in particular by using interpreters. Patients of foreign origin acc ounted for 58% of all the consultations during the survey. Of these, 37% we re Non-French-speakers (NFS). The four major language groups of NFS were Al banian, Somali, Tamil and Serbo-croat. Qualified interpreters were used in 24% of the consultations, relatives acting as interpreters in 17%, and in t he other consultations without anyone interpreting (59%) a common language had to be negotiated: French, English, Italian, Spanish or German. In only 14% of the consultations without interpreters, both patient's and doctors a bility to speak a common language was rated as good. Our data suggest that there has been an increasing awareness of the possible language barriers in the medical outpatient clinic. Even if proxy solutions (informal interpret ers or the use of a common language) still play an important role, access t o an interpreter service has been widely used This calls for systematic and regular interpreter use, planning the interpreting needs in a timely manne r: In the future, training in working with interpreters should become an in tegral part to the introductory sessions for the junior physicians assigned to the outpatient clinic.