A few years ago, some establishments announced on the door the languages spoken by the people they served. With regard to tourism, it was important to make yourself understood and make it easy for visitors, and for this reason it was common to read signs that read: “On parle français”, “English spoken” or “Si parla italiano”. When it comes to business, any effort is good to earn money. With respect to health, on the other hand, this premise does not rule.
In the Balearic Islands, the Catalan-speaking people have just seen their linguistic rights stepped on once again. Now it turns out that to work in public health the requirement for health personnel to know how to speak Catalan disappears. They say it will only be a merit. But knowing the fascists who govern, within two days that merit will also be considered discriminatory against monolinguals and will end up being suppressed. They say that it is more important that there are good professionals who want to work in the Balearic Islands for the sake of their health, and that requiring them to speak Catalan is an impediment to this avalanche of people who are already waiting in line to take the exams.
Isn’t the dialogue between doctor and patient part of the treatment of a disease?
Isn’t the dialogue between doctor and patient part of the treatment of a disease? What health professional would give up a good understanding with the person they have to attend to? It would seem that the answer would have to be “none”, but we Catalan speakers know that this is not the case, not even in Catalonia, where Catalan-speaking patients often find that the healthcare personnel who care for them do not want to use the Catalan language, although He has had to prove that he knows her. A few days ago, Isidor Marí, a member of the IEC, tweeted: “Any good medical professional knows that empathic understanding with patients is essential for diagnosis, treatment, and healing. Only the ignorant defend that ignoring the language of the patients does not matter.
However, in the case of the Balearic Islands, and also in the Valencian Country, the first thing that the extreme right has done when it came to power, with the acquiescence of its fellow governments, has been to persecute and annihilate the Catalan language. It is seen that it is one of the great problems of these lands, much more than unemployment, education or housing.
If, as the new leaders of the Balearic Islands say, health is more important than the fact that the staff speak Catalan with the patients, I propose that, from now on, any duly qualified citizen of the European Union can work throughout Spain , even if I don’t know Spanish. Let’s see what that bunch of linguicides will say then.
