Learn How Surrey Memorial Hospital Deals with Cultural Barriers Between Staff and Their Patients
Surrey has a diverse ethnic mix with half its population belonging to a visible minority group and one-third of the residents from a South Asian background. Much of the expected growth in the region will come from immigration.
Fraser Health first responded to this reality in the 1990s by commissioning a report on multiculturalism. In 2005, Surrey Memorial Hospital hired its first manager of diversity, Jas Cheema.
Her department was expanded to cover the whole health region in 2010 and has four employees. Cheema still runs diversity relations and translation services, overseeing 37,000 requests for translators in 2012, 57 per cent for Punjabi. Mandarin came in a distant second at six per cent, followed by Farsi, Cantonese and Korean, all at five per cent.
Source: Vancouver Sun
Tags: cultural competence, health, immigrants, public policy
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