People Lacking Access to Healthcare in Their Native Languages Have Higher Mortality Rate

Photo: Tevfik Bayram

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

Public health specialist Dr. Tevfik Bayram has evaluated the results of the scientific study he conducted with Kurdish people who cannot speak Turkish in the southeastern province of Şırnak.

"In a study published in the Lancet journal in 2013, former health minister Recep Akdağ was also among the authors of which, it was found that people whose native language is not Turkish had worse access to health services.

"It was found that these people had less pregnancy care and their children had lower vaccination rates. It was also found that babies and children under the age of five had higher mortality rates.

"We conducted a qualitative study to see why these people use health care less and how language affects the use of healthcare."

"People who cannot speak the official language become dependent on other people to obtain health information, seek, use and apply treatment when information is not provided in their mother tongue. "

"In order to prevent this dependence, health care should be provided in the mother tongue, including preventive and health-promoting services; the number of health workers speaking the local language should be increased; information-education-communication materials should be prepared in the relevant language and professional translation services should be provided when necessary."

Multilingual healthcare, mobile translation apps

"The quality of local health services should be improved in order to prevent people from moving away from their social resources, thus avoiding external referrals. In addition, research should be conducted to evaluate the availability of new technologies such as mobile translation applications in multilingual health services.

"Due to the shortcomings in local health services, it was seen that health centers frequently refer patients to the centers outside the province, which leads people to lose their social resources, especially in interpreting services and pushed into greater desperation."

Dr. Tevfik Bayram

He holds a master's degree in Public Health from Hebrew University in Israel. At the same university, he conducted scientific research on the "increase of infant mortality in Şırnak."

He is a research assistant at the University of Bern in Switzerland. He conducted research on the access of refugees to healthcare services.

He completed his specialty training in Marmara University Public Health Department.

A research by Bayram was published at Oxford University.

He speaks Kurdish, Turkish, English and Persian. (MB/VK)