A Communication Crisis In Qatari-Cuban Hospitals

Who could have thought that the allyship between Qatar and Cuba would bring a fleet of medical workers to the sandy dunes of Doha? Since 2012, Qatar and Cuba have collaborated on employing Cuban healthcare workers such as doctors and nurses to work with and support the healthcare system in Doha. Given that the Cuban healthcare professionals are Spanish speakers, a question is raised: How are they carrying out their tasks when there is no proper communication between administrators, healthcare workers and patients?

I visited Aisha bint Hamad Al-Attiyah hospital in Tinbek one Friday night after feeling a worrying numbness in my arms. I knew that the medical staff in this hospital were mostly Cubans, since I’d accompanied my brother there once and had a chat with one of the pharmacists. This time, I wasn’t feeling like talking in Spanish to communicate with the staff, I had already been panicking about my arms and getting some oral practice was not a priority. But when the head nurse found out that I did speak Spanish, she yelled out in relief, “why didn’t you let me know that you spoke spanish? I’m going to kill you!” I had no idea that my ability to communicate in Spanish brought about such joy and relief to an emergency room full of Cubans.

After receiving the proper care from the doctor and nurses, I got to listen to some of their concerns and struggles of working in a community they cannot communicate with. Qatari citizens and residents in Qatar are either monolingual Arabic speakers, bilingual English and Arabic speakers and rarely speak Spanish. The Cuban doctors and nurses are expected to carry out their tasks which completely rely on communication, yet they can barely communicate.

The ministry of health is responsible for bringing in these foreign staff and providing them with the proper training in order to communicate with the patients and those who visit the hospital. Not equipping them with the linguistic skills that are required for a person to communicate with people in this country could reap unfortunate issues. Think about how common miscommunication is between medical staff and patients in a monolingual society, now think about a very active language barrier placed between the doctor and the patient. Sadly, this is the reality of healthcare in Qatar today.

To be frank, there is a miscommunication crisis that is active in all Qatari hospitals today. One thing that policy makers fail to realize –or ignore– is that Qatar is a linguistically diverse country. Yes, the official language is Arabic, but the use of English is heavily relied on and is considered the Lingua Franca in Qatar. But here’s the problem, not everyone who lives in Qatar is able to communicate in these languages. There is a chunk of people living in Qatar who are monolingual, only able to speak their own native language which range from Hindi, Malayalam and Urdu, amongst others.

Despite this issue, the problem that exists in the Qatari-Cuban hospitals is of bigger risks. In these cases, the hospital itself, which only communicates in Spanish and limited English, cannot carry out its duties and function properly.

During our conversation, I was surprised to find that only 1 of the staff members working that floor was able to converse in English. We continued to chat in Spanish, and I got to listen to some of their daily struggles of being monolingual Spanish speakers who were given a job without proper training in linguistic communication.“We can barely understand what the patients are concerned about, most of them only speak Arabic, and it gets very frustrating for both of us at times” this is what one of the nurses had to say about the daily struggle they face in this job. “We try to take 20 minutes out of our day to practice some basic phrases such as ‘esh el moshkela’ (what’s the problem), ‘rooh el saidaliya’ (go to the pharmacy) ‘yameen, yasar’ (right, left) and as such.”

It’s completely frustrating to see how a country that prides itself in cultural understanding, medical advancements and development fails in the one area that must be secured and is considered to be the foundation to effective healthcare: communication.

Foreign medical staff must be equipped with proper training in language and communication before being put in the field and expected to do their jobs as medical professionals. Without proper communication between patients and doctors, healthcare would be impossible.