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Pamphlet helps Inuit patients communicate

SARA ARNATSIAQ

Retired Anglican minister Mike Gardener of Iqaluit has prepared a book to help Inuit during hospital stays in the South. (PHOTO BY SARA ARNATSIAQ)

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A hospital stay in a place far from home is never pleasant for anyone, but it can be especially difficult if it's impossible to communicate even the most basic needs to hospital staff.

That's why Mike Gardener of Iqaluit, a retired Anglican minister, has prepared a 16-page booklet to help Inuit during hospital stays in the South.

Before retiring, Gardener explained, he used to go to the hospital in Montreal once a year for a week at a time, and often observed people who could not communicate with hospital staff or other patients. And he suspects the same happens when people go to Ottawa.

"There were good interpreters, but an interpreter can't always be there. So I felt that we need something which will fill that gap. So if there's an urgent need or an Inuk needs to say something to a Qallunaaq nurse or doctor, they will have the means to say it."

Published by the Diocese of the Arctic, the pamphlet includes a section with 19 simple statements to which a patient can point if there is no interpreter available. For example, a patient can let a nurse or doctor know she is hurting, thirsty, needs to urinate, or is hungry. A patient can also let caregivers know when she wants to go back to bed or call home.

Another section has 13 questions that a nurse or doctor might ask a patient. The booklet will be made available to the general public once it is distributed to the communities. Gardener said that each community has been sent five copies. Written in Inuktitut and English, the English proofreading was done in Yellowknife.

The pamphlet also offers patients some help in obtaining spiritual consolation.

"You can't have a minister there all the time, and often when people are sick it's hard for them to search for scripture or a hymn book, and things. So I wanted to pick out one or two ideas which would be easy for people to use or read." Gardener said.

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