Infertility affects one in six couples regardless of nationality, creed,
or race. The psychological effects of infertility are as diverse as there are people. At
one time or another, most of us experience a feeling of being "isolated" from
family and friends because we feel that they do not "understand". These feelings
of isolation can also be accompanied by deep depression, intense grief and despair, anger,
and frustration.
For the non-english speaking community, infertility can be an even more
traumatic experience because many of them have nobody to talk to about their infertility.
It is important that we all do our best to provide some sort of network where non-english
speaking people can talk to others in their own language about their experiences.
If you would like to help the non-english speaking patients who attend
your clinic, there are many things you can do. For example, you may choose to act as a
liaison whereby patients call you and give you their name, phone number and language, and
you give them the name and phone number of another patient who also speaks their language.
You can also put up posters (in various different languages) at your
clinic telling patients your contact phone number. Or you may like to organise
advertisements to be put in your clinic's newsletter. Another very effective way to help
is to ask your clinic staff to hand out prepared notices (in the various languages) to
patients as they come in.
If you would like more information about this, please Diana.
This page ©G Phillips
1998
