Accessibility and health: the sign language interpreter as mediator between deaf patient and health professionals at HC

Abstract

This work was carried out during 1 (one) year by a sign language interpreter at the child psychiatry ambulatory, at Unicamp's Hospital das Clínicas, for a 12-year-old female deaf patient, domiciled at the city of Sorocaba. The interpretation in medical settings is very recent, and constitutes one of the Translation Studies' great field branches in the sub-field "community interpretation". Professionals in this field, known as medical interpreters, are people who help patients who are not fluent in a country's official language to communicate with medical service providers in hospitals. The sign language interpreter (SLI)'s main task is to enable the communication between a medical professional and a deaf patient, who is a sign language user. Differently from the conference interpreting, in which the interpreter usually translates into one single language, the medical interpreter must be able to translate into and from both languages. The sign language interpreter's presence makes it possible for the deaf patient to understand and be understood by the medical professional. During the service, the SLI's presence enabled the deaf patient to be heard in her own language, without the presence of relatives, thus, she was free to express herself, creating a good relationship with the medical team, being able to be diagnosed and treated correctly, resulting in her discharge.