OT You can imagine this happening here too.

[harry]

Migrants get priority care over locals.

[Capitol]

I saw it try to happen here about 5 yrs ago. An immigrant tried to jump a surgery queue in the local hospital. Fortunately the surgeon was French and he knew what the pecking order was, so the immigrant was sent home with a flea in his ear.

[Brian Gaff]

[harry]

Well, do some research & let us all know what you discover.

[harry]

They're already getting priority in social housing in the UK. So health care could be next.

[Steve Walker]

The trouble is (certainly here) that the NHS has to pay £500 for 3 hours of a translators time - even if only a few minutes are required - and then per hour after that. I can understand making sure that if one is needed, they are fed a constant stream of patients to make the best use of their time. I'd be pretty pissed off if I was a local stuck behind them though.

SteveW

[charles]

Why don't the NHS have interpreters on their staff?

[Richard]

That would be a tad expensive to cover all languages. Why not use vets for those unable to speak the language? Vets seem to do a wonderful job with their patients, none of which actually talk any language.

[charles]

Dr Doolitle would disagree

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Let's hope you never go abroad and require medical services, then.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'd have thought you wouldn't need to look far in any major hospital to find someone who is fluent in any of the common languages?

[polygonum]

Who would be responsible for any mis-interpretations? It is ridiculous to expect staff who happen to have experience of a non-UK language to be able to translate at a sufficiently high level. There's plenty of native English speakers who struggle with some of the language of medicine. And you need a translator to be competent in both languages involved.

Sure, in an emergency, anyone is likely better than no-one.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Well, yes. If you have to book a freelance interpreter, the patient could be dead by the time he arrives. And a patient won't necessarily know the correct medical terms for his symptoms anyway.

[hgww]

Presumably because it would be much more expensive to have interpreters for all the languages they need in every town they have a hospital etc. Much more practical to have that done the way they have done it, particularly when they can't just use one of the hospital staff that does happen to speak that language when the patient doesn't have a relative who can translate etc.

[hgww]

No one, just like when a relative is used.

It is ridiculous

There is no high level involved.

There's plenty of native

That's why the medical personnel use normal language to the patients in any language.

And

But only in the normal language, not the language of medicine.

Not just in an emergency. When asking where it hurts and whether it hurts when you take a deep breath etc, you don?t need any language of medicine.

[Cursitor Doom]

The thing is, though, having travelled widely throughout europe, it's clear the UK is the only country that provides free, on-demand interpreters for claimants of all sorts. Nowhere else does this; it's plain lunacy.

[whisky-dave]

What foreigners speaking another language in our NHS. Seems strange that we need to import foreigners into the NHS at ~£150 an hour. Why aren;t there any jobs at £9

[whisky-dave]

I heard american express amonst others include translators but you have to pay extra for that don't you.