Masi, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] When we look at the hospital, there's a lot of people in the hospital. We wonder sometime how they are being taken care of. When you're hospitalized with an illness, there's the discomfort of the treatment and worry about the recovery, and the heightened fear of the COVID-19. When you're a unilingual Dene elder in an English-speaking medical world, it's more stressful for the patient. During the daytime, the Stanton Hospital provides interpreters, but once their shift is over, the interpreters are not available. What happens after 5:00 p.m., when there are no interpreters? What happens to the elder, and how are they to communicate? Who is interpreting for them after hours? Sometimes in the evening, the patients are asked to take medication, and they are not able to communicate anything to the nurses. This is a very important issue. A lot of elders had brought this concern to me. They said that, once they are in the hospital, the interpreters are not available after hours, and they say that they are not able to talk to the nurses, at all. I think it's important that an interpreter should be available after 5:00 p.m. because we have a lot of elders who speak their language, and they are unilingual. I will ask the Minister of Health and Social Services on how Stanton Hospital operates with the interpreters after hours. Masi. [Translation ends]
Jackson Lafferty on Interpretation Services in Hospitals
In the Legislative Assembly on May 28th, 2020. See this statement in context.
Interpretation Services in Hospitals
Members' Statements
May 28th, 2020
Page 846
See context to find out what was said next.