Quote:
Originally Posted by mobertol
Easy to be cynical -I've been in that position. I gave birth to my first son in Italy having lived in the country for a few months -I had no interpreter and had prepared myself by reading books in English from the National Childbirth trust. Luckily it was a textbook birth and all went well.
Unfortunately major population migration can lead to misunderstandings - customs are different between one population and another.
My current Gynae here in italy has told me that she is terrified of assisting births of non EU women as, apart from the language problem, many have no preparation and have never even had a scan. They arrive in A&E, ready to go, and the docs have to face emergency Breach births which are almost unheard of these days in european women because of technological advances. When things go wrong , as can happen in a percentage of cases, they face the circumstances and are held "to blame".
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It is all very well providing leaflets and information in other languages, but it really doesn't help if those people that the information is aimed at, cannot access it because they cannot read their own language.
Everyone has a responsibility to ensure they can understand what is being said to them.......and when you migrate to a foreign country, you do your best to try and learn some of the language........I have looked after women who have been in this country in excess of 20 years, and yet they do not speak any English.......they may understand a little of it...but they cannot speak it...this despite the fact that their children have grown up and gone to school here and learned English in school...what that says to me, is that these people do not wish to be part of the wider community....they do not wish to integrate.