Today’s world of coronavirus has, on the one hand, brought health care front and center. On the other hand, it has raised numerous new challenges, such as in the world of interpreting, especially – but not only – in medical interpreting.
The world of interpreting (oral translation) is undergoing significant changes during this period. Interpreters in meetings and conferences need to adapt to new conditions, such as the fact that they’re not in the same room or hall as the participants. They also do not always have the appropriate technical equipment to translate without interruption – sometime there is an unstable Internet connection, sometimes they need to translate to multiple participants, some of whom have background noise. In general – the overall uncertainty of this entire situation has upended the norms we had been used to.
Zoom on remote interpreting
Medical interpretation has faced significant challenges in Corona times. Since caregivers must provide urgent care to a broad range of communities, medical interpreters are more essential than ever. However, because of the rapid changes in healthcare provision – both for “regular” patients as well as for those with the coronavirus – many problems arise. For example, according to this recent report from the United States, in some cases, minorities who do not speak English receive misinformation or no information at all because there is no easy and available way to communicate with them through translation. In other cases, medical interpreters are exposed to infection because they do not receive minimal personal protective equipment (PPE) such as face masks. Many healthcare services did not prepare in time to provide remote interpretation services, and caregivers are not trained in using telephone or video interpretation.
At the same time, many interpreters are at home, some of them losing their jobs because they were mainly engaged in face-to face interpretation. Alongside the many difficulties, this situation can also be a great opportunity for learning and professional development. In recent weeks there have been numerous webinars about remote interpretation and we decided to be the first to discuss it in Israel.
Over 30 people in meeting
This week we held a special Zoom meeting on “Remote Interpretation during the Corona Period.” At the meeting, we presented the benefits and challenges of remote interpretation (which existed only in healthcare in Israel before the crisis), technology infrastructure necessary for remote interpretation, and tips for entering the field for interpreters who had not performed this kind of interpreting before. More than 30 interpreters: graduates of our medical interpreting courses, freelance interpreters, and students, participated.
Among the participants were representatives of the Tene Briut organization, which operates Voice for Health, the first telephone medical interpreting service in Israel. Iris Malako, a medical interpreter who was a former cultural mediator, presented the difference between face-to-face interpreting, cultural mediation, and telephone interpreting. Remote interpreting is more complex emotionally, technically, and from a communication standpoint, but it does have many benefits – it is immediate, focused, and there is more anonymity for the patient (which is why patients from a small community like Ethiopian-Israelis are happy to use it when discussing sensitive issues).
Iris Malako and Ilan Yavor, a Hebrew-English conference interpreter, helped us illustrate simultaneous remote interpreting, and we introduced several other technology infrastructures that allow freelance interpreters to provide this service from home.
The response to the meeting was excellent, and we hope it will encourage interpreters to learn more about remote interpreting now, and for the future, and broaden their professional skills.
Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for its continued support of cultural competency in Jerusalem.
