The Health Care in French at a Glance workshop provides health care professionals and managers of health care establishments with a greater awareness of the importance of offering health care services in French and provides them with tools to better serve patients in French. The workshop is now offered online as well as through onsite facilitated sessions. Health care professionals and managers can sign up for the facilitated sessions or get in touch with Réseau Santé to request that the workshop be offered at their institution or workplace.
The workshop was developed by Réseau Santé – Nouvelle-Écosse, the Consortium National de formation en santé (Université Sainte-Anne chapter) and Acadian Affairs.
Objectives of the workshop
Part 1 – Overview of Nova Scotia’s Acadian and francophone community (1 hour)
• Get to know Nova Scotia’s Acadian and francophone community
• Appreciate Acadian cultural identity and heritage
• Recognize the provincial government’s efforts with respect to French-language services
• Learn about the resources available to help offer services in French
• Understand the French-language Services Act (2004)
Part 2 – The importance of offering health care services in French (2 hours)
• Understand why it is important to offer health care services in French
• Understand what a francophone patient is feeling when they receive health care services in English
• Highlight the difficulties that Acadian and francophone patients and their families run into
• Measure efforts to support health care services in French
• Understand the impact the quality of health care services in French has on the well-being of patients
• Identify the obstacles in your establishment
• Get to know the various promotional tools for highlighting the availability of services in French
Part 3 – The Acadian and francophone patient (2 hours)
• Recognize that there are more Acadian and francophone patients than we realize
• Be able to recognize an Acadian or francophone among your patients
• Recognize medical symptoms from expressions used in the Acadian dialect
• Understand the importance of respecting the patient’s culture
Part 4 – Tools for offering services in French (2 hours)
• Offering a minimum level of service to a patient in French
• Improve your ability to communicate with an Acadian or francophone patient
• Get to know the resources available to help an Acadian or francophone patient
• Recognize the utility of an interpretor
