Language of relief: medical interpreting within the scope of the refugee crisis response

One of the main challenges facing local authorities in the regions affected by the current refugee and migrant crisis is to properly deal with the healthcare dimension, both in terms of providing adequate healthcare to migrants and regarding public healthcare of the host country. Because the crisis involves contact between people from distant regions, speaking a wide number of different languages that may be considered rare or emerging languages in the Balkans (such as Farsi and Dari or individual dialects of Arabic and Kurdish), the role of medical interpreters is often filled by ad-hoc interpreters who are native speakers of those languages, rather than trained medical interpreters. The aim of this paper is to examine the way medical interpreting services have been provided to refugees and asylum seekers in the Republic of Croatia between the peak period of the crisis in 2015 and 2019, paying special attention to the implications of this issue for the wider public healthcare concerns. The methodology used comprises an ethnographic case study supported by the qualitative analysis of interviews with the mediators involved in medical relief efforts.