The article analyzes the impact of language barriers on the medical treatment of foreign-speaking patients and illustrates that the absence of systemic, institutional responses to language barriers ...in healthcare facilities exacerbates racist attitudes toward migrants and ethnic groups. The article is based on 201 interviews with healthcare workers, employees of public or non-governmental institutions as well as users of healthcare services that were conducted between 2018 and 2019 in twelve local communities in Slovenia. Following the methodological and conceptual framework, the first part of the article highlights the various negative consequences of language barriers experienced by healthcare workers and foreign-speaking patients. The second part shows that in the absence of an accessible network of professional intercultural mediators or interpreters, healthcare workers are left to their own devices with respect to overcoming language barriers. Finally, the last part of the article shows that many interlocutors are increasingly searching for the culprit for this situation. Some healthcare workers attribute the responsibility to the abstract concept of the “system”, while others attribute the responsibility exclusively to migrants, thus perpetuating key elements of the culture of racism present in Slovenia. In this culture of racism, knowledge of Slovene language becomes one of the most important criteria that distinguishes deserving from undeserving migrants. The latter are a privileged object of racist responses at the level of cultural, institutional and personal racism, which is proving to be mutually toxic.
Izobraževanje odraslih na področju zdravja postaja vedno bolj obsežno polje v andragogiki ter drugih družboslovnih, humanističnih in medicinskih vedah, kar se med drugim odraža v samostojnih revijah, ...interdisciplinarno zasnovanih razpravah o raziskovanju, v mednarodnih projektih, mnogovrstnosti praks in tudi v pestrosti poimenovanj: zdravstvena vzgoja, izobraževanje za zdravje, zdravstveno izobraževanje, vzgoja in izobraževanje za zdravje, razvoj zdravstvene pismenosti ali zdravstveno opismenjevanje, ozaveščanje o zdravju. V tej tematski številki je odnos med izobraževanjem in zdravjem/boleznijo osvetljen z dveh zornih kotov. Prvi obravnava vpliv izobraževanja, vključenosti v izobraževalne programe na zdravje in dobro počutje. Drugi zorni kot razmerja med zdravjem in izobraževanjem odpira pogled na izobraževanje, ki je ciljno pripravljeno z namenom izboljševanja znanja o zdravju/bolezni.
The article seeks to stimulate dialogue about the evaluation of cultural competence in healthcare. The first part of the paper presents the different attempts to measure cultural competence in the ...field of healthcare and critically analyses the problems that arise concerning the use of instruments that measure the cultural competence of health providers. The second part of the article focuses on the evaluation process of the first cultural competence educational programme for healthcare workers in Slovenia, serving as an example to demonstrate the importance of complementing quantitative methods with qualitative ones and to emphasize the need to shift the focus from measuring the cultural competence of individual healthcare workers to the evaluation of educator performances, patient perspectives, and the cultural competence of healthcare institutions as a whole.
This paper seeks to contribute to critical reflection on the importance, dilemmas and problems that arise in educating health professionals about the socio-cultural dimensions of health and ...healthcare. In the first part of the paper the authors show that although educational programmes in the field of cultural competences have experienced a remarkable upswing, they are accompanied by many ambiguities and shortcomings. Based on numerous anthropological criticisms, the authors highlight the major conceptual and methodological problems that accompany many cultural competence efforts. The second part of the article focuses on an analysis of the multi-year process of introducing a training course in cultural competence in Slovenia, in which over 500 health professionals have been trained since 2016. Based on the results of the participants’ quantitative evaluation and educators’ selfevaluation, the authors critically analyse the contributions of this training course, while highlighting some of the key dilemmas and difficulties that have accompanied this process.
RésuméEn Slovénie, les « effacés » sont d’anciens concitoyens qui, à la suite de l’indépendance du pays, se sont retrouvés sans aucuns droits politiques, économiques ou sociaux, ni droits relatifs à ...la santé. L’article, fondé sur une enquête ethnographique, analyse les représentations et les réactions face à cette exclusion sociale.
The Erased residents of Slovenia comprise a group of 25,671 individuals, who found themselves without political, economic and social rights soon after Slovenia became independent. The present article ...discusses a number of aspects of economic and social exclusion of the Erased, as well as the impact of the mentioned exclusion on their bodies and state of mind. Amongst others, the incidence of živci (“upset nerves”) and živčnost (“nervousness”) as the embodied metaphor of socio-political and economic inequality brought about by the erasure is analyzed through a medical anthropological perspective.
The paper deals with medical aspects of migration by first focusing on legal, economic and socio-cultural factors that threaten migrants’ health and by then identifying how these factors affect ...access to medical facilities. Using the case of Slovenia, I will prove that, despite apparently formally regulated access to health services, migrants often remain without health care or without medical citizenship. Because of the frequent inability of migrants to access their formally guaranteed rights, it is crucial to assess how they are perceived by health workers - the second part of the article therefore analyses some of their responses.
The article seeks to stimulate dialogue about the evaluation of cultural competence in healthcare. The first part of the paper presents the different attempts to measure cultural competence in the ...field of healthcare and critically analyses the problems that arise concerning the use of instruments that measure the cultural competence of health providers. The second part of the article focuses on the evaluation process of the first cultural competence educational programme for healthcare workers in Slovenia, serving as an example to demonstrate the importance of complementing quantitative methods with qualitative ones and to emphasize the need to shift the focus from measuring the cultural competence of individual healthcare workers to the evaluation of educator performances, patient perspectives, and the cultural competence of healthcare institutions as a whole.
PDF
