Patient upset over lack of French service in ER

A Moncton woman is complaining after she went to the emergency room in Tracadie-Sheila and her doctor could only speak English.

Murielle Sonier went to the hospital in the Acadian peninsula community last Thursday after experiencing some pain.

'There could be a little misinterpretation of a little detail that could save a life or could endanger a life.' — Murielle Sonier

Sonier, who speaks English but her first language is French, was told the only doctor available to see her could only speak English.

Sonier said she was uneasy but she was told that translation would be available to her while she was seeing the doctor.

The translators turned out to be nurses, who Sonier said, were clearly not bilingual themselves.

"I was listening and they were struggling. Like they were doing signs and one nurse was asking the other, 'How do you say that' and they couldn't communicate with him," Sonier said.

Dr. Neil Branch, the vice-president of medical affairs with Regional Health A, said the emergency room doctor was sent to Tracadie-Sheila from Saint John to replace a physician who had to leave unexpectedly.

"We had to find someone at the last minute so it's really something that is exceptional," Branch said.

"We hope it won't happen again and in the future we'll do our best to get francophone physicians as we did or bilingual physicians as we did try again this time as well without success unfortunately."

Unacceptable service

Sonier said the service she received at the hospital was unacceptable and that she can't imagine an English community would tolerate having a French-only speaking doctor in their emergency room even for one shift.

"My English is not 100 per cent good. I was worried. I was worried by the translation. I was just there saying to myself, well let's say they can't really translate to him what's the problem, maybe he'd prescribe me something else," Sonier said.

"You always have that fear that maybe things are going to go wrong. But I don't think that it's good that a doctor cannot communicate with his patient or even that the people that are translating are not fully English. There could be a little misinterpretation of a little detail that could save a life or could endanger a life."

This isn't the first time that the Tracadie-Sheila hospital has faced a physician shortage in its emergency room.

The emergency room was forced to close in June 2001 because of a lack of doctors. The closure was marred by the death of a four-month-old baby boy from the Tracadie-Sheila area, who had to be taken by ambulance to the Caraquet hospital because the local hospital's emergency room was closed.