Language main barrier for Chinese-born seniors to access health care

Language is the main barrier Chinese-born seniors face when trying to access services such as health care, a two-year long survey by the Essex County Chinese Canadian Association has found. 

Sungee John and Stephen Tsui worked on the survey, which includes 178 seniors 60 years of age and older.  

"During the course of the survey we also had consultations and meetings with agencies and they all do admit that there is a vacuum, but they're limited by resources and they can only allot funds for certain needs and language is on the bottom," said John. 

Why some seniors don't speak English 

There are two groups of Chinese seniors that have not learned how to speak English, said Tsui. 

The first came to Canada in the 1970s and worked in restaurants among other Chinese immigrants, and didn't have to learn the language.

"In most recent years seniors came to Canada with their children, so they would not have an opportunity to learn English," said Tsui. 

He said the main problem is that these seniors are hesitant to see a doctor, mostly because they wouldn't understand what a doctor was saying. Tsui is working on finding enough people to translate for seniors who need medical attention. 

"We look at some of the major cities in Canada, they have facilities to look after the Chinese seniors in terms of their language situation, the food they want to eat and the living environment they want to be in, but Windsor doesn't have that," said Tsui. 

The survey found the mobility around the city is also an issue, especially for seniors that need assistance walking or who live in areas where bus services are limited. 

Finding solutions 

"We will share this survey with community leaders and elected officials because we hope that they can be convinced with the data that more needs to be done," said John. "It's not just the Chinese community, it's all ethno-cultural communities with language barriers. That population will grow more in the future."

While in the final stages of the survey John spoke with Coun. Bill Marra about some of the findings.

"He had mentioned that the city was in the process of discussing an age-friendly strategy, and so I hope that issues of cultural and language barriers can be fitted into that strategy," she said. 

The Chinese centre is trying to create outreach programs for seniors to help them with some of these issues. They try to bring health-care workers into their centre to meet with seniors and talk to them about issues they need to be aware of.