Battle over language in Winnipeg's St. Boniface General Hospital

A language battle is brewing at one of Winnipeg's leading medical institutions.

Since October 14th, nursing jobs posted for the Woman and Child program at St. Boniface General Hospital list the ability to speak French as one of the qualifications.

That has some nurses worried the ability to speak French is taking priority over skill and experience, possibly putting patient care at risk.

"They've started hiring people into positions and taking French language qualifications over top of nursing experience," said nurse Tamara Burnham, a 14-year nursing veteran who works in the St. Boniface program that includes obstetrics and gynecology.

"With all the things going on in health care, to focus in on that doesn't make sense."

Manitoba Nurses Union Local 5 says it's gone to court to fight the French language requirement because it violates their collective agreement and common sense.

The nurses union went to court October 23rd after the Labour Board refused to hear the matter.
Their suit said the Labour Board erred when it refused to hear their complaint that the hospital committed an unfair labour practice by changing the conditions of employment and refusing to negotiate.

The hospital has a hard time filling all of its nursing shifts, never mind requiring that they're filled by French-speaking staff, said Burnham.

Burnham said she has never seen a francophone patient's treatment hampered because of a language barrier.
Most Franco-Manitobans can also speak English, she said.

"A very real problem, however, exists with the growing number of immigrants who speak neither official language," she said.

"If the hospital wanted to address a real language barrier, it would hire interpreters who speak languages like Urdu, Hindi and Mandarin," she said.
The hospital has volunteer interpreters who speak 60 languages but they're not always available when you need them, she said.

Burnham said she has seen women in labour unable to get pain medication because of a language barrier.

"You can't get informed consent because you don't know if they understand," said Burnham. "If it's a delivery, you can't stop a baby from coming," she said.

"Too bad they couldn't spend this much time and energy to have interpreters on call."

Union local president Debbie Mintz said the hospital hasn't done a demographic study of the patient population since the early 1990s, and doesn't know how the client population in Winnipeg has changed.

The hospital says it has to expand services in French.

"St. Boniface General Hospital has a government-conferred responsibility to actively offer and provide services in French to its patients, their families and the public," hospital spokeswoman Helene Vrignon wrote in a statement.

"To meet our legislated responsibility, a small number of staff in direct patient care positions must be bilingual French and English.
In fact, health services in the language of your choice is a basic component of quality of care."

Quebecer complians about "English treatment" in hospital

The reaction of many people to being kept waiting for 20 hours in a hospital emergency ward in Quebec might be to worry, or complain, about what seems like a chronic shortage of medical personnel.

Sitting for hours on a hard chair in a room with other injured or ill people, watching for the faintest hint that the one overworked doctor might see you now, could lead a sensible person to think that whatever Quebec is doing to find more health care workers, it isn't enough.

Jean Dorion, the head of the Société St. Jean Baptiste de Montréal, takes a different approach. His reaction to waiting nearly a day for care was to call for French to be made the working language in all Quebec hospitals, including the few remaining bilingual hospitals.

Why? Because when he was finally seen by a doctor, the doctor asked if he spoke English.
Dorion said he replied that he did speak English. "I was treated in English," he said. "I found it humiliating."
He further suggested that if he had asked for treatment in French the doctor might not have looked at his case "with a very favourable prejudice."

This is ridiculous, to say nothing of offensive. Dorion has the nerve to suggest that a medical practitioner would take less care with his health if he asked to be treated in one of Canada's two official languages.

Dorion provides nothing in the line of proof for this odious suggestion. So pressed is he for ammunition for his make-everything-French cause that he has to go back seven years to unearth a study by the Office Québécois de la langue française.

This dusty study shows, Dorion said, that 18 percent of francophone patients treated in bilingual hospitals said they had been "in contact" with medical workers or other personnel who lacked a "sufficient" knowledge of French. Is he kidding? What does "in contact" mean? Who defines "sufficient"?

More recently, according to information compiled by the Office québécois de la langue française, it received a grand total of five complaints on the subject of language use in hospitals. Four of the complaints concerned language on signs; only one had to do with language of service. Exactly one complaint in the course of a year. In a normal world, that would be considered a triumph. It is a triumph.

Some hospitals in Quebec are allowed to be bilingual but must make French service available - and by the evidence, they do just that. This requirement does not mean that every single person working in a bilingual hospital has to be perfectly bilingual. Dorion, for instance, doesn't even know if the doctor who asked if he spoke English was bilingual. It appears that Dorion preferred getting a chance to complain to the simple expedient of asserting his right to be helped in French. What nonsense.

If any group is having trouble communicating in hospitals, it is rural anglophones. The regions are becoming more unilingually French even as unilingual anglophones grow older and require more medical care. Now there is a real problem.

Source: The Gazette

Editor's opinion:

"How does that work, open heart surgery in French? Or getting a French flu shot? Complaining about something like that, after having waited for 20 hours? To magnify a futility like that can only come from a French speaking nitpicker. Humiliated? What's so humiliating about the English language? How many people, on a world-scale, actually speak French and why is that do you think? Of course there are many nice francophone people, but in general as a people, is there anyone that likes the French? I know in Europe nobody really does. They don't even like each other, hence the cold relationship between the French from France and the ones from Quebec!"

New Brunswick hospital improves bilingual service after complaint

Last week, the Saint John Regional Hospital in New Brunswick has apologized to a French-speaking couple from Campbellton in the same Provence, who filed a complaint they were not offered proper medical service in French.

The francophone couple from northern New Brunswick, Annelle and Romain Bouchard, spent 21 days at the hospital last November.

While Romain developed complications during his heart treatment and was near death, Bouchard said she wasn't able to find anyone on staff who could explain what was happening in French.

On a number of occasions, Mrs. Bouchard said she had to depend on help of family members of other patients who were bilingual, to translate for her.

Dr. Marc Pelletier, the cardiac surgeon, said the hospital is now taking necessary steps to avoid future language problems.

"We've already called back every one of our patients who is on the waiting list to identify their preferred language," Pelletier state. "This information will be listed on their charts".

He also said that the hospital is establishing a paging system that will ensure a translator is close at hand, he said.

Patients from all parts of the province who need cardiac care go to the heart center in Saint John.

"The heart centre has a mandate and a "moral obligation" to service patients in their language", Pelletier said.

Approximately 50 percent of the nurses at the hospital are certified as bilingual, he said, and several members of the staff are currently taking language training.

Pelletier said he is sorry the Bouchards had an unfortunate experience at the hospital but said it was a rare situation.

About 95 per cent of the communication with the Bouchards during their stay was in French, he said, but there were at least two situations where it was not promptly provided.

"People are trying so hard," Pelletier said, "and to have people come up to me in the hallway and say, 'You know, I really was trying. I was speaking to them in French every day. It's kind of my broken French and to have this come out, is this my fault? To explain to that nurse, 'No it's not your fault. You did a great job.'"

"Most francophone patients who are treated at the hospital leave having had a good experience," he said.

CBC