Language Barriers and Access Difficulties in the Health Services

Tona Lizana Alcazo, Director of the Action Plan on Health and Immigration, General Directorate of Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health of the Generalitat of Catalonia

The particular characteristics of the newcomer population, the language differences, their cultures, traditions, religions, their way of interpreting health and illness, the differences in lifestyles, etc. can generate barriers and hamper the access to the health service. This effects adversely upon their health, upon the quality of the assistance and upon the use of the health resources and, therefore, the system needs to adapt to the new situation in the best possible way.

With this purpose the Directive Plan of Immigration is established in the Health System. This will have to establish the goals of improvement of the care given to the immigrant foreign population and to establish the actions for attaining them, marked by the strategies described in the areas of welcoming, mediation and training :

• Welcoming Plan. I t intends establishing a series of programmes and actions in the area of the health sector that benefits the welcoming and, therefore, the integration of the immigrant population. This Plan has to achieve the improvement, the co-ordination and to optimisation of information and the access of the immigrated population to the health system and to the services through the elaboration of health welcoming materials in Catalan and translated to different languages.
• Intermediation Plan. The incorporation of mediators in the health environment favours a better attention to the health needs of immigrants, as well as improving the accessibility and the autonomous use of health resources through improving the communication between professionals and foreign patients. The goals of the plan are also to help interpreting the different perceptions, attitudes and knowledge due to cultural, social or linguistic differences between professionals and immigrants.
• Training Plan. This plan has to facilitate to health professionals the knowledge and skills necessary to attain the degree of cultural competence that guarantees the quality of care during the process of assistance. And this, from the point of view of the implementation of the service, as well as the relation and the information procured.

Undoubtedly, it is necessary to favour that all staff improves the knowledge of the different cultures of origin of the immigrated communities which arrive to our country and their living conditions, taking into account the different conceptions of health and illness, and respecting their values. This knowledge will give health professionals what is currently considered as essential to guarantee the communication between cultures, namely, cultural competence.