Refugees have suffered ill-health as a direct result of the poor availability of trained interpreters here, the a.g.m. of the Irish Medical Organisation in Killarney was told yesterday.
Mr Deogratias Ndakengerwa, chairman of the Rwandan and Burundian Community Association in the Republic and a cultural mediator in health, described how a mix-up over medication recently caused the emergency admission of a refugee patient.
"A doctor asked his interpreter to tell his patient that he must use all his suppositories. But because the interpreter did not have the word 'suppository' in the patient's language, he used the word 'pill'. The patient took the suppository orally and ended up in accident and emergency," he said.
In Mr Ndakengerwa's own case, it took six days to find an interpreter when he became ill shortly after he arrived in the Republic.
Poor interpretation results in misleading information, wrong diagnosis and an avoidably negative outcome for refugees seeking healthcare, he said. The use of a friend, family member and especially a child is not an appropriate solution to the poor availability of interpretation services. Bureaucratic barriers were also a problem. There was a general lack of information on the health system, while medical card forms were not accessible for language reasons.
Mr Ndakengerwa criticised the delay experienced by refugees in getting medical cards and said racism was sometimes a factor in finding a general practitioner here, with a reluctance by some to take on black people and non-English-speakers.
Dr Philip Crowley, director of the Irish College of General Practitioners' multicultural society project, said many of the health needs of asylum-seekers were not being met. Referring to racism in Irish society, he said: "This is an issue that doctors must take a lead in confronting."
Noting that close to 20 per cent of asylum-seekers are victims of torture, he said general practitioners were not skilled in dealing with the problem.