Lost in Translation

Reports from the UK and Sweden detail how the pandemic has exacerbated barriers to health care for ethnic minorities: 

• COVID-19 restrictions that bar family members from accompanying patients can mean no interpreter to translate health and missed appointments. “My mother does not speak English, so she refuses to attend her appointments without me,” explains Muneera Iqbal, whose mother has cirrhosis of the liver.


• Culture is another barrier, with certain communities focused on homeopathic remedies, or placing stigma on certain diagnoses.


• For refugees and asylum seekers, fear of being “in the system’ is yet another barrier.

 
Al Jazeera