2010 January Greetings

The Centre would like to wish all our Members a Happy and Prosperous 2010!

In 2010, we will continue our outstanding service to our members, and to foster better and stronger relationship with volunteers and organisations we work with. Our aim in 2010 is to fight for equality for the Chinese Community in Wales; particularly in the Health services. In this New Year, let us encourage each other, and that everyone from every walk of life will progress positively, and the government will constantly improve the level of service to the Chinese Community.

During the last year we have been fighting on our members’ behalf for an equal and better health service. You may be familiar with the following quotes:

“I don’t understand many medical terms; I don’t understand what they mean. So, we cannot clearly express our needs. The doctor can’t understand our problems either. Sometimes they have to guess to diagnose. As a result, we are not getting the appropriate treatment.”

“I want to tell the doctor about my health situation, but don’t know how to. The doctor needs to tell me the results of diagnose, but I don’t understand. For example I need to understand 90% of what he is saying but I can only understand 40-50% of it, this is no problem until I am really ill, most of them treat me by guessing the problem.”

 “Even as a student from China, I have difficulties seeking medical help. You don’t know how to describe how you feel. For example pain, which part of your body is in pain, is it headache or other parts of the body? The other problem is pain itself, is it a sharp pain, muscular pain, swelling pain or other kinds of pain? There are many ways of saying it, but very difficult to tell the exact symptom.”

Language is the main barrier to an equal service but it is not the only barrier, the government needs to understand our culture, our traditions, our believes and our ways of life in order to provide a service that can actually benefit the Chinese Community. Our effort has  eventually led us in contact with the Healthcare Inspectorate Wales.

Healthcare Inspectorate Wales is an independent watchdog for the health services in Wales. They are here to make sure that the Health service is providing an equal service all service users. After a numbers of meetings with them to listen on our reflection of the how the Chinese Community are facing difficulties when accessing the health service, they have now agreed to come and meet our members and listen to your stories and experiences.

If you like to see an improvement in the Health service, please come to the centre on
20th January, 1pm – 3pm to meet the representative from the Healthcare Inspectorate Wales.