English health rights

Advocates push for improved interpreter access

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Health care advocates are calling for improved access to interpreters in Quebec City hospitals after it emerged that an English-speaking immigrant mother was not offered interpretation services while hospitalized at the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Québec (CHU) for an emergency cesarean section last year.

For members of the English-speaking community, the right to receive health care services in English is enshrined in the Health Act, although only designated bilingual institutions systematically provide care in both languages; the CHU is not a designated institution. The sole designated institution in the region, Jeffery Hale Hospital, does not have a labour and delivery unit.

Patients across the province have access to an “interpreter bank” co-ordinated by Santé Québec, with interpreters in more than 100 languages, including English. However, evidence suggests that the bank is relatively little used by English speakers in the region – only 159 requests for English interpretation were made at the CHU from 2020-2025, compared to 4,456 for Spanish and nearly 1,400 for Swahili, according to Santé Québec. In the 2021 census, 10,130 people in the Quebec City area named English as their first official language spoken, while 7,850 said they spoke Spanish as a primary language and only 950 were Swahili speakers.

Anecdotal reports also suggest that health care providers don’t always ask patients whether they want an interpreter, leaving it up to the patient or their caregiver to request one.

“When you’re having contractions, you don’t have the headspace to ask for an interpreter,” said Marielle M’Bangha, co-ordinator of the Service de référence en périnatalité pour les femmes immigrantes de Québec (SRP- FIQ), which filed a complaint with the CHU on behalf of the anonymous patient, known as Mary. The SRPFIQ provides resources and support for immigrant women during and after pregnancy, including accompaniment for hospital visits. “Some people say it’s infantilizing [to suggest to a patient that they might need an interpreter] but it’s the other way around; the patient needs to understand.”

“The mothers won’t always name their needs … and [the interpreter bank] depends on the availability of the personnel,” she added. “Once, we needed someone in Ukrainian, and that took a while.”

Access to English-speaking hospital staff is “very case by case,” said M’Bangha’s colleague, Hélène Lepage. “Those who speak English will do it, and they’ll do it happily. You can’t expect everyone to speak English, but it would be good to have someone on call for critical moments.”

Service “needs to be more widely known”

“The 24/7 emergency interpreter service is available throughout all departments of the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale, and several programs regularly offer interpretation services to patients,” said CIUSSS spokesperson Mariane Lajoie in an email. “Sometimes, the patient or their representative may request interpretation services themselves, but when an appointment is scheduled and the staff member knows there is a language issue, an interpreter will be provided.” No CIUSSS representative was available for a follow-up interview at press time.

“The system failed this woman,” said Jennifer Johnson, executive director of the Community Health and Social Services Network (CHSSN), which advocates for health care access in English in the regions. “The resources and tools that should have been able to help her are in place … although [services] are supposed to be organized in advance, so I can see how that process could fail in a crisis situation.”

Johnson said the existence of the interpreter bank “needs to be more widely known among English speakers.” She cited a recent survey of English-speaking Quebecers which showed that nearly 30 per cent of English speakers in the Capitale-Nationale did not feel comfortable asking for help in English at health institutions. Forty-seven per cent had language assistance, although only one-fourth of those used a professional interpreter. One-third relied on friends and family, which Johnson said was a risky decision. “Friends and family don’t have medical training and may misinterpret something or omit an important detail. [Asking friends and family to interpret] is a very bad practice that people are resorting to because they don’t understand that interpreters are available to them.”

“If you ask for an interpreter, it’s the health institution’s responsibility to get one,” Johnson said. “If you don’t ask for [an interpreter], you most likely will not get one. You shouldn’t be afraid to ask for it, because it’s your health [on the line].”