SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The territorial government is not fulfilling its obligation to deliver health care services in all 11 official languages, the NWT language commissioner says.

Sarah Jerome, language commissioner for NWT, says the GNWT needs to focus on providing oral translations in health centres. - NNSL file photo

"They have lip service to it, they say they're doing it, but no, they're not," Sarah Jerome said.

Jerome is calling on the government to ensure residents have access to translators at health centres across the territory following a presentation to MLAs of former language commissioner Shannon Gullberg's 2008/2009 report Speaking of Health: Official Languages as part of Quality Health Care in the Northwest Territories.

In her report, Gullberg outlined 15 recommendations to the GNWT, including offering timely translations of health information both online and in hard copy, and providing health professionals with linguistic and cultural training.

Jerome said many people in NWT still face a language barrier when trying to access health care, especially since a majority of young people do not speak an aboriginal language and can't translate for their elderly relatives.

She said there is a more pressing need to offer translations orally rather than in writing, since a growing number of people no longer read in their language.

"At the moment I think the oral language is really important before we get into the written," Jerome said. "We need to have the language spoken so that people are listening to it."

Health centres must make existing translators available on-site or by phone, she added, and work toward training new ones.

"If we don't have ... people that are working on site that are fluent in the languages, then we need to find people that are fluent," she said. "We're sort of between a rock and a hard place. The present translators, interpreters that we have right now don't have anybody to replace them."

Lillian Elias, an Inuvialuktun translator in the dialect of Uumarmiutun, recently returned from a terminology workshop in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut, during which language specialists from the Eastern Arctic compiled about 500 translations for body parts and internal organs.

"That's what we have to do," the Inuvik resident said, recalling the challenges she faced when bringing her Inuvialuktun-speaking grandmother to the doctor, trying to ensure she was getting the translation exactly right.

"I guess that's where my speaking my language was really [helpful] – I kept it strong because of that," Elias said. "I could count on my fingers who can still do the translation. It would be really good if we start training the young people to do these things because we're not going to be here forever."

Jerome worries that the current practise of teaching aboriginal languages in school isn't working.

"If the language is so important to us, we need to do something drastic right away. We need to be radical in our approach. For example, what we need to do is say the language can never be revitalized in the school system," she said, explaining that young people can learn the languages more naturally out on the land.

"All of a sudden we were taken away to the residential schools and all of a sudden we had to learn to speak, write and read the English language. Why can't we do that with our aboriginal language? It can be done."