Page 162 - S. Ličen, I. Karnjuš, & M. Prosen (Eds.). (2019). Women, migrations and health: Ensuring transcultural healthcare. Koper, University of Primorska Press.
P. 162
ana Medarić and Mateja Sedmak
you show them [. . .] For me in the delivery room this is not a big prob-
lem, because usually they have a companion, they have a part of home
with them. When they are at the hospital department, they are a little
more isolated. They do not have anyone near, they are alone. But I no-
ticed that often they have a telephone and then they communicate in
a way that they do not feel alone.
According to the narratives of health professionals, a particularly vulnera-
ble group of migrant women are Albanians, who usually do not speak Slove-
nian, English or any other language.
They are from Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, they do not speak Slove-
nian; usually the husband translates but he speaks Slovenian poorly.
As a rule, they do not speak English.
Resolving communication problems is therefore left to individual health
professionals and their ingenuity. They try to solve them with ad hoc inter-
preters (e.g. a husband, relative, neighbour, friend or an ethnic community
translator), technology (cell phones), brochures, non-verbal communication.
Sometimes midwives asked a husband to tell us a couple of words, so
we made a dictionary, so at the end of the delivery at least you can tell
her that she should breathe, push.
Communication is sometimes such a problem that even Google trans-
late does not help, or that book from the Ministry that they have given
us, so that we are actually distressed, because we don’t know whether
they hear us, if they understand. And there is a greater possibility that
we overlook something.
The lack of language knowledge and the inability to fully communicate
has various implications. One of the main problems is that as a result some
migrant women are actually excluded from prenatal and postnatal care: they
do not attend maternity schools, courses, workshops, lectures, etc.
Language knowledge is the problem. And again, here we are, they can-
not attend maternity school if they do not know the language [. . .] We
have the right to visit the pregnant woman in the last trimester, but we
do not get the data [about the women who are at this stage, ZM] and
those who come to maternity school are already informed. [. . .] So, we
160
you show them [. . .] For me in the delivery room this is not a big prob-
lem, because usually they have a companion, they have a part of home
with them. When they are at the hospital department, they are a little
more isolated. They do not have anyone near, they are alone. But I no-
ticed that often they have a telephone and then they communicate in
a way that they do not feel alone.
According to the narratives of health professionals, a particularly vulnera-
ble group of migrant women are Albanians, who usually do not speak Slove-
nian, English or any other language.
They are from Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, they do not speak Slove-
nian; usually the husband translates but he speaks Slovenian poorly.
As a rule, they do not speak English.
Resolving communication problems is therefore left to individual health
professionals and their ingenuity. They try to solve them with ad hoc inter-
preters (e.g. a husband, relative, neighbour, friend or an ethnic community
translator), technology (cell phones), brochures, non-verbal communication.
Sometimes midwives asked a husband to tell us a couple of words, so
we made a dictionary, so at the end of the delivery at least you can tell
her that she should breathe, push.
Communication is sometimes such a problem that even Google trans-
late does not help, or that book from the Ministry that they have given
us, so that we are actually distressed, because we don’t know whether
they hear us, if they understand. And there is a greater possibility that
we overlook something.
The lack of language knowledge and the inability to fully communicate
has various implications. One of the main problems is that as a result some
migrant women are actually excluded from prenatal and postnatal care: they
do not attend maternity schools, courses, workshops, lectures, etc.
Language knowledge is the problem. And again, here we are, they can-
not attend maternity school if they do not know the language [. . .] We
have the right to visit the pregnant woman in the last trimester, but we
do not get the data [about the women who are at this stage, ZM] and
those who come to maternity school are already informed. [. . .] So, we
160
