[Nursing interpreters? Interpreting nurses?]

Swiss hospitals are characterized by an increasing diversity, in the sense of personal and social differences such as including origin, gender language, skills, age, lifestyles and social status. Diversity is a challenge for hospitals. It is crucial to language barriers and migration and their clinical consequences. In spite of a trend towards interpreter services "going professional", interpreters are only reluctantly used. This is surprising. In this article we deal with three questions: What are clinical consequences of language barriers? How can language barriers be overcome? Should nurses act as interpreters? The literature available clearly shows that due to insufficient flow of information patients speaking a foreign language tend to receive inadequate care. Also, there is a consensus that patients' relatives acting as ad hoc interpreters are ill-equipped or unsuited to overcome language barriers. Conversely, professional interpreters improve most evidently the quality of care of patients speaking a foreign language. However in clinical everyday life the consistent use of interpreters is not always feasible. Thus, the setting-up of a pool of hospital-based ("internal"), trained bilingual health professionals appears to be an acceptable alternative.