Handling dissatisfaction in onsite and telephone healthcare interpreting: Reflections and insights from empirical data

Abstract

Providing professional onsite or telephone interpreting services is an effective strategy to address the linguistic and cultural needs of increasingly diverse patients. In this respect, healthcare interpreters contribute to the development of more equitable and inclusive societies by enabling effective communication that allows healthcare providers to fulfil their professional duties and patients to exercise their rights. These rights include the ability to express dissatisfaction with the services received, whether this concerns healthcare professionals, interpreters or both. Drawing on an exploratory approach grounded in observation and discourse analysis, this study examines four interpreter-mediated (both in-person and telephone) interactions to explore how user dissatisfaction is managed. The findings suggest that healthcare interpreters adopt very different strategies and roles depending on the context and underlying needs, including mediation and active involvement in the search for solutions.