Phillips Christine B, Travaglia Joanne
Australian National University, Peter Baume Building, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
Aust Health Rev. 2011 Nov;35(4):475-9. doi: 10.1071/AH10900.
One in thirty-five Australians has poor proficiency in English, and may need language support in health consultations. Australia has the world's most extensive system of fee-free provision of interpreters for doctors, but the degree of uptake relative to need is unknown.
To assess the current unmet and projected future needs for interpreters in Australia in Medicare-funded medical consultations.
Secondary analysis of Australian Census, Medicare and Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS) datasets. Age-specific rates of non-Indigenous populations who had self-reported poor proficiency in English were applied to age-specific attendances to general practitioners (GPs) and private specialists to estimate the need for language-assisted consultations in 2006-07. The proportion of services where language assistance was used when needed was estimated through aggregate data from the Medicare and TIS datasets.
We estimate that interpreters from the national fee-free service were used for patients with poor proficiency in English is less than 1 in 100 (0.97%) Medicare-funded consultations. The need for interpreters will escalate in future, particularly among those over 85 years.
Doctors currently underuse interpreters. Increasing the use of interpreters requires education and incentives, but also sustained investment in systems, infrastructure and interpreters to meet the escalation in demand as the population ages.
三十五分之一的澳大利亚人英语水平较差，在健康咨询中可能需要语言支持。澳大利亚拥有世界上最广泛的为医生免费提供口译服务的体系，但相对于需求而言的使用程度尚不清楚。
评估澳大利亚医疗保险资助的医疗咨询中目前未得到满足以及预计未来对口译员的需求。
对澳大利亚人口普查、医疗保险和笔译及口译服务（TIS）数据集进行二次分析。将自我报告英语水平较差的非原住民人口的年龄别率应用于全科医生（GP）和私人专科医生的年龄别就诊人数，以估计2006 - 2007年对语言辅助咨询的需求。通过医疗保险和TIS数据集的汇总数据估计在需要时使用语言辅助服务的比例。
我们估计，在医疗保险资助的咨询中，英语水平较差的患者使用国家免费服务口译员的比例不到百分之一（0.97%）。未来对口译员的需求将不断增加，尤其是在85岁以上人群中。
目前医生对口译员的使用不足。增加口译员的使用需要教育和激励措施，同时还需要对系统、基础设施和口译员进行持续投资，以满足随着人口老龄化需求不断增加的情况。
