The Interhospital Interpreter Project

My family immigrated to Canada when I was a child. Soon after we arrived, I became ill with acute appendicitis. For days, I lay in pain while my parents searched desperately for a physician. But in the small Ontario town where we had moved, there were no cultural interpreters. My parents faced not just a language barrier, but the barrier of a lack of knowledge of the health care system. They were unaware that an ill person could seek treatment in the emergency department of a general hospital. My parents finally found someone who could help, and I was treated just hours before my appendix would have ruptured. I will never forget those days of pain and fear.