With my lack of confidence to communicate in the language of the host country, I have experienced the calamity of being crippled by the inability of interacting efficiently with medical staff and fairly expressing my requests. A few years later, this dark memory turned to become the pushing factor behind my impulse to commit myself in lending a helping hand for assisting those in need of support with language barrier. Particularly, vulnerable migrants who are struggling to interact in English but are fluent in either French, Lingala, Swedish, Kikongo, or Swahili. For the last 3 years, as a freelance interpreter, I have assisted many of them either face to face, through phone calls, or via video remote conferences.
The ambiguity prevailing, to some extent, when a vulnerable migrant with lack of fluency in English tries to contact the interpreter’s line, can be truly distressing. The most alarming situation remains in a case of emergency occurring in late hours in the night when all linguists are practically offline and unable to take calls. Although unpredictably impetuous and requiring immediate medical attention, unfortunately, the fate of many vulnerable migrants in acute need of translation at night is simply doomed to endure a laborious pain for hours and wait for a golden moment at dawn when a suitable linguist will be accessible. In revealing four heart-breaking stories, this tale narrates the calvaries of two refugee and two asylum seekers as they all faced an urgent need for an interpreter at a crucial moment during which no interpreter was available to help on the spot.
The first case is related to an asylum seeker who had to provide consent before the doctor could perform a life-threatening surgery on his genitals. Normally, I always make sure to log off from my interpreter’s application before going to bed. This is simply to avoid receiving any call that might wake me up late in the night while I am already deeply asleep. Unluckily or luckily, on that day I have forgotten to log out of the application. It was around twenty minutes past midnight when my phone rang and woke me up. First, I tried to ignore it with the hope the caller will drop interest and not call back again. Yet, two minutes later, the phone started ringing again. I just pressed the silent button to prevent the ringing tone from continuing to alert me. Curiously, two more minutes later, despite the phone being now muted, from the darkness of my room I could see the blinking light from my phone shining over the room to show that there is an incoming call. With this persistence, I surrendered. Something just clicked in my mind to pick up the phone. When I answered the call, the doctor understood directly that I was asleep. He apologised deeply for waking me up. It’s just a very quick call, but it is very crucial. He added pleading for my understanding about the urgency of the situation. The patient must clearly confirm that he has fully understood the risks associated with this surgery before we can start the process. No problem, doctor. That’s fine. I answered. I introduced myself to both the doctor and the patient. The doctor went through a dozen of risk-associated questions and the patient had to either consent or dissent on each of them. At the end of this dialog, moaning profoundly, the patient could not retain his tears for showing gratitude to my help. I just wanted to heartily thank you one more time. Without your assistance, I was going to be lying on this bed for hours without anyone getting close by. No problem, I retorted. It is my pleasure to be able to help. I wish you the best of luck and a very successful surgery. I felt so flattered by the touching words of the patient, and that day, deep into my own conscience, I resolved not to be disconnecting from my interpreter’s application before going to bed. I decided to commit myself to helping anyone in profound crisis who needs my assistance at that crucial moment.
Noticeably, on one of the following days, though I did not log out of my interpreter’s application, unfortunately, I forgot to leave the phone on charge while sleeping. The phone battery went flat, and later on, the phone went off. Hence, I was unwillingly unreachable during that night. When I woke up in the morning, at around 7 am, I realised that my phone was off. It took less than five minutes after putting it on charge and switching it on for me to receive a call from the emergency service in Leicester. Are you able to take a Swahili call? I was asked by the operator. The patient to assist with translation was a lady who had severe pain in 4 of her upper teeth. The pain was so sharp that it was a trouble for her to easily communicate. She could barely speak. She has been at the emergency since midnight and had to wait for the whole 5 hours before having a chance to speak to an interpreter. However, despite that long waiting time and the turmoil she had endured, the euphoria she manifested when she was put through on the phone for me to introduce myself to her, was simply hysterical. I somehow felt guilty for being unreachable that night. May God bless you so much, my brother, for making yourself available to help. She said directly in Swahili, without even me starting to introduce myself. She pursued with her compliments, claiming: I am dying, my tooth is killing me. I did not get a single second to close my eyes the whole night since I came here to the emergency at a quarter past midnight. I was told that there is not much they can do for me without an interpreter. I was just been given a painkiller (paracetamol), which has not helped at all. The doctor, suddenly, interrupted our conversation, as he felt like it was going too far. Thank you, interpreter, and let’s start with the process, the doctor added. He went through all the routine questions as required. I kept on conveying slowly by slowly the information to the lady, making sure that the process is indeed clearly understood. The last step was to prepare her for getting an anaesthesia injection. She reiterated again with her gratitude before ending up the call as she was being taken to the ward for getting the sedative injection prior surgery. Goodbye and the best of luck with the operation, I added to her before finalizing the call.
On a very chilling night, around 3 am, properly wrapped in my blanket to keep warm in Eurolines bus as I was coming from a trip from Paris, my phone vibrated, rang, and woke me up. Hi there, are you a Lingala interpreter? The nurse directly asked me. Yes, I am. I responded. Oh, that is great! Not so easy to get one at this time. She added. Considering the place where I was at that moment, and due to the confidentiality, that we are meant to abide by when assisting with interpretation, it was realistically inappropriate for me to help in this circumstance. However, from the nurse’s pleading expression, I felt the necessity and understood that the urgency of the situation was so imminent. Fortunately, the bus was not fully packed. It was realistically empty, carrying approximately 10 passengers. I was sitting on the front side and I could see many empty sits on the backside. A convenient area to have a chat with reasonable discretion, privacy and tranquillity. Just a moment, please! I begged the nurse to hold up as I started moving towards the suitable area I have just spotted. Once I sat and informed the nurse that I was ready to talk, she started by summarizing the situation for me. We have a woman in critical condition who is in total despair. We can see that she has been displaying evident and severe sequels of PTSD. We were informed that she attempted to commit suicide a few hours ago. I could hear the lady battling, screaming, and shouting in Lingala: find me an interpreter now and right now! When I introduce myself to her, she recognised my voice and my name. I also remembered her. A lady that I have been assisting in many sessions of her PTSD therapy. The gloom behind the tragic story Mariam is so enormously heart-breaking that I used to get quite emotional during most of her therapies. a horrendous decision. The boat sunk and all her three children perished in the sea. She lost all her children in a very tragic situation. That horrible tragedy has still been permanently haunting her. She has become schizophrenic with constant thoughts of killing herself. Her parasympathetic nerves are so damaged and has lost some of her controls. The nurse asked if I could hold the line while she will be taking the patient’s blood pressure. Please, go ahead I am just waiting. I responded to the nurse. I could feel that the patient was pretty unstable. Screaming constantly and being adamant to let the nurses process the treatment. After two minutes, I had she screamed so loud then the communication went completely silent. Interpreter, are you there? Yes, I am. The nurse asked and I responded. I am afraid, she has just passed out. This is now a case of extreme emergency. I have to terminate this call and seek for further support. The nurse instructed sadly before ending the call. I felt completely perplexed.
The next case is a tragic recount that has deeply melted my heart. I was on my morning daily jogging routine alongside the Nene river, around 6.45 am when my phone rang. Are you able to take a French call now? The jovial coincidence with this request was the fact that I was just taking a water break when the phone rang. That’s fine. Please give me 30 seconds to adjust my headset, and you can put me through. I responded. When I was connected, there was a panel of doctors and nurses who have surrounded the patient on her hospital bed. They were there to deliver some news. In that equation, I, the interpreter, was the middle man. The messenger through whom will transcend all itching, tickling, or exciting news to pass over to the patient. Interpreter, please, can you introduce yourself to the patient and tell her we are here to have a chat with her about her surgery and other details. One of the doctors requested. The patient interrupted and said: please, interpreter, before even introducing yourself, tell them first to bring my baby to me. I want to see my baby now. She suddenly and sadly broke into tears. Using a kind of mixed French-English jargon, she kept on insisting that she wants to see her baby prior to having any conversation with anyone. That is fine, don’t worry. You will see your baby. We will give you plenty of time to see your baby. But, let us first take you through the whole process and all the steps as it should be done. One of the doctors anticipated, pleading with the patient to relax, as he gave me again the green light to proceed and introduce myself. After introducing myself, the medical staff regain control of the dialog. Another doctor jumped over the conversation and started explaining. We just want to clarify things for you. Since yesterday night, we could not communicate with you, because we could not reach an interpreter at that time. The day before yesterday, you were brought up here at around 3 am in a very critical condition. Your blood pressure was so high. Extremely high that it has deeply affected your kidneys. We were at the crossroads fighting to have both you and your baby under control and safety. Caesarean was the most viable option at that stage. Our concern with the process is particularly the fact that you have been bleeding profusely. That is why we are eagerly looking forward to monitoring this bleeding and carrying on some further tests to make sure that the situation is stable and under control. We have inserted an implant in your womb to control and monitor this bleeding situation. In hearing that, through the patient repetitive humming, I could understand that she was quietly cooling down from the doctor’s clarification. The conversation turned bitter and sour when the doctor, pursuing her explanations, said: Unfortunately…. Unfortunately, the condition of your high blood pressure has so much affected your kidneys that it has led to a preeclampsia. This has caused the placental abruption, and with this, unfortunately, your baby has not survived. I am afraid, and we are all very sorry for that. The doctor concluded. In conveying this horrific news to the client, though I was not able to see her, I could feel the dismay of someone willing to scream to the highest possible tune, but she couldn’t as she did not have enough energy. I could sense the impulse of someone willing to jump over the bed and run madly out of the room, but she couldn’t as she was crippled by the wound from her surgery. I could understand the despair of someone willing to hold and hug a loved one nearby so tight to share the turmoil tormenting her at that moment, but she is alone and isolated in this miserable medical compartment. Dead or alive, I still want to see my baby. I could hear the patient addressing the team of doctors in her surroundings as she was profoundly weeping. Interpreter! Are you there? One if the doctors asked. Yes, doctor, I am here. I answered. Thanks for your help. We will need to go and bring in her husband. We need to give them some privacy first, and we may have to recontact you later on if needed. That was how sad I started my day that day.
As clearly emphasised in the stories above, an asylum seeker or a refugee with language barrier having an emergency situation around midnight to around 6 or 7 am, a frame time during which most interpreters are offline, would be crucified with all the turmoil he/she would have to endure before any interpreter would be available online again. It could be a suitable element to consider if companies providing interpreting services can consider either engaging night shift interpreters or some interpreters who may be exclusively committed in cases of emergencies happening at crucial times when most interpreters are not available.