Hearing language improves healing

Three new medical dictionaries in Ojibway-English, Oji-Cree-English and Cree-English have been developed to help patients at the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre.
“When they hear their language, they start to heal,” said Helen Cromarty, special advisor for First Nations Health at the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre. “Often the physician does not know the language. In order to communicate with the client, having those (medical dictionaries) is one way of assistance in communication.”
Cromarty said the medical dictionaries will be used by Meno Ya Win’s trained medical interpreters to assist the patients in communicating with hospital staff.
“We have found that it really works,” Cromarty said. “The patients are more compliant, more relaxed.”
Cromarty said there is a team of six interpreters at Meno Ya Win who provide service 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“They (patients) are able to talk,” Cromarty said. “When you are someplace and you are not able to understand or talk to anybody, you are at a disadvantage.”
Renee Southwind, manager of communications at Meno Ya Win, delivered a presentation on development of the three medical dictionaries at the Aboriginal Health Care: Governance and Leadership conference, held Oct. 27-28 by the Ontario Hospital Association in Thunder Bay.
“Our purpose was to improve the cultural and linguistic services and to standardize the interpretive lexicon so that all our interpreters and staff are speaking the same language,” Southwind said. “It will empower clients to be able to make decisions regarding their health by ensuring the quality of interpretation.”
The Aboriginal Health Care: Governance and Leadership conference featured a presentation by Nishnawbe Aski Nation Deputy Grand Chief Mike Metatawabin; an Overview of the Meno Ya Win Centre of Excellence Model by Douglas Semple, special First Nations adviser to the Meno Ya Win’s CEO and board, and Doug Moynihan, vice-president of corporate services at Meno Ya Win; and Cross Cultural Training and Patient Safety by Cromarty and Barb Linkewich, vice-president of health services at Meno Ya Win.
Other presentations included Healing Communities through Effective Governance, Effective Dual Governance Model, Improving First Nations Control Through Health Governance and Strategies on Recruitment and Retention of Aboriginal Staff.
Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, chair of the conference and inaugural holder of the Nexen Chair in Aboriginal Leadership at the Banff Centre in Alberta, opened the conference and comedian Moccasin Joe closed the conference.