Living abroad, it is essential to seek medical treatment for illness. Have you ever seen a doctor in Australia who could not speak clearly or understand what the doctor said?
Delayed treatment of language disorde
SBS reported recently that many Chinese have been delayed after they arrived in Australia because they were unable to get effective treatment when they were ill because of language disorders.
The Australian New State Cancer Council, (Cancer Council NSW), also found that language disorders have severely affected treatment outcomes for many cancer patients. More than half of cancer patients in the Chinese community do not receive enough information to support them.
They are often limited by language, unable to understand what doctors mean, or express their illness and feelings, coupled with a lack of clarity about the Australian health care system. The result is a delay in diagnosis, poor coordination of care, and even treatment errors. The findings of the Australian New State Cancer Council come from a large number of cancer treatment documents.
The council's Annie Miller says immigrants tend to lack knowledge of health. But when doctors and nurses introduce them in English, many people do not understand it because of language limitations.
Here, she also gives a typical example:
Once there was a cancer patient who spoke Mandarin, and the doctor explained a lot to him about his condition. But because of the professionalism of medicine itself and the poor English, medical vocabulary was a disaster to him, so he didn't understand it at all. He did not know if he was saved, nor did he know what stage of his cancer had developed. In this case, however, he had to agree and accept a treatment that was not fully understood. This made him, who was already pessimistic about the condition, even more depressed and helpless. The result is that this state of affairs has a very negative impact on his condition. In this regard, Australian health experts say language disorders can also cause concern and anxiety. Because they do not understand, do not know the situation, they are extremely prone to psychological problems. Professor Danforn Lim of Sydney University of Science and Technology also believes it can cause depression and anxiety. As Australia's largest immigrant group from non-English-speaking countries, the Chinese community generally does not receive sufficient information and services. It can make them feel anxious and even depressed, which can seriously affect their quality of life. " How can we change this?
There have been news reports that a New Zealand doctor was inspired to invent App to help patients with language disorders! However, for a variety of reasons, it is not widely used. And the APP can only translate some simple basic problems.
Life in Australia wants to completely solve the problem of medical treatment, improve your English is the most important, especially when seeing a doctor in English vocabulary. At the same time, we also need to increase the knowledge of the medical system to facilitate timely medical treatment.
Some of the commonly used English expressions for medical treatment in Australia have been prepared below, and we have learned them!
(I) General conditions:
(2) colds:
(III) problems with hands and feet:
(4) lack of sleep:
(v) respiration:
(6) Oral defect:
(VII) Enterogastric disorders:
(VIII) Blood pressure, etc.:
If you think the English language above is too complicated or hard to remember, you can also try the following method:
When contacting general practitioners, it is best to find a doctor who can speak Chinese to facilitate communication. Usually, there are many Chinese-speaking doctors in the Chinese-speaking area.
In addition, if you are an Australian citizen or permanent resident, you can request a free Chinese translation when seeing a doctor. You can make an appointment with your doctor so that the doctor can contact Doctors Priority Line to arrange a phone call or an on-site Chinese translation service.
Understand the above methods, if really sick in Australia, but also easy to deal with, quickly get better!