Kirsten Larsen
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 22/99) - Medical terminology and procedures are not easy to comprehend or explain in any language, but a new series of medical interpretation handbooks in four of the North's official languages has made it easier.

Language medical interpreters are an integral part of providing quality health care across the North, which boasts eight official languages. Having medical interpreters on hand in health facilities such as Stanton Regional Hospital, which has medevacs coming in from the communities regularly, is a much-needed service. Last year, a total of 8,200 interpreting hours were spent at Stanton Regional Hospital.

Because of the great demand for interpretation, Stanton Regional Hospital embarked on a project to improve the Inuktitut and English versions of the handbook, originally produced by the GNWT Health Promotion and Education, and to develop Dogrib and North Slave versions.

With a $50,000 grant provided to Stanton's culture and language services by the Department of Social Services in 1997, the medical interpreters at Stanton joined forces with professionals and residents from around the North to produce the handbooks.

"We tried to use the language specialists from the different regions," said Sarah Cleary, project co-ordinator for the handbook and a medical interpreter at Stanton. "We also used medical professionals in the field that speak the languages and elders as well."

Translating the medical terminology required an analytical look at the aboriginal languages, research, consultation and a lot of patience. Finding the right way to explain a medical procedure was not a simple matter either.

"It's really difficult to translate English words into aboriginal languages because we have to use extended descriptions to get the message across," said Cleary. "Explaining how a CT scan works is like telling a short story."

The spelling of some words in the aboriginal languages required consultation with several different sources. The consultation provided a sort of precedent which Cleary said could help in the future to standardize the aboriginal languages.

"We talk about standardizing our language and preserving our language," said Cleary. "With this we did a lot of conferences, a lot of team conferences to come up with spelling. We took it out to the communities for verification as well. It was a major task.

"Hopefully in the near future we will have a spell check computer software for aboriginal languages. If we are going to do all the things we want to do we are going to have to do it all the way if we are serious about protecting our language."

The four translations are just the beginning of what could become a continuing project to translate the handbook into all the languages officially recognized in the North.

"This is just a start but funding has to become available," said Cleary.