An ambitious telephone service gives newcomers to the Greater Toronto Area in Canada access to 24/7 medical language interpretation.

The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is a major metropolitan area in Canada and 41 per cent of its population is comprised of immigrants speaking more than 170 languages and dialects. 400,000 of these residents have limited English ability and until recently had limited access to language translation services at the doctor’s office.

In order to address this problem the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), an organization funded by the Ontario government to support local health services, recently launched Language Services Toronto, a real-time telephone medical interpretation service that offers translation into 170 languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

According to an article by Katia Snukal in Yonge Street, a weekly online magazine, the telephone service is aimed at reducing the language communication barrier between non-English speaking patients and their healthcare practitioners.

Telephone medical interpretation services offered at Toronto hospitals before the launch of Language Services Toronto were patchy at best. Only a handful of GTA hospitals were signed up for telephone interpretation, and the notoriously expensive service was purchased from third party sources.

In order to overcome these obstacles, Language Services Toronto offsets the price of telephone interpretation and allows hospitals and community agencies to purchase the service in bulk, significantly reducing the cost. In fact some hospitals will see their rates drop by as much as 80 per cent.

‘Language Services Toronto allows patients to have a greater voice in their own healthcare and enhances their healthcare experience,’ stated CEO of Toronto Central LHIN, Camille Orridge in a press release.

‘By acting together, hospitals and community are able to provide many more people with the same high quality care, no matter who they are and which language they speak. Language no longer needs to be a barrier to great healthcare,’ she added.

The services were launched this month and are already offered in 19 hospitals and 14 community agencies across the GTA.

So what’s your take? Do you believe that a government subsidized program such as Language Services Toronto can provide and maintain the scope and quality of service needed by those requiring it? Or are such services better left in the hands of the private sector?