The barriers faced by Eastern European women living in the UK when accessing healthcare and support services are being highlighted in a study by a team of researchers from the University of Sunderland.
Dr Louise Harvey-Golding, Dr Diane Simpson, Carrie Phillips and Julie Smiles have been working with the charity International Community Organisation of Sunderland (ICOS) on the study, which included a survey of 127 Eastern European women from across Tyne and Wear, small focus groups with a sample of the surveyed women and interviews with four service providers working with Eastern European women.
The survey and focus groups highlighted a number of barriers and challenges experienced by the Eastern European women in accessing healthcare and support services, predominantly relating to language and communication.
This includes difficulties communicating with healthcare staff and service providers and a lack of translation and interpretation services with many of the women having to rely on family members and people from the community to translate and interpret for them.
One of the women taking part in the focus groups said: “I was going with my friends to the dentist. That’s a very strange situation. When you sit there, and they have to explain everything. It’s quite a specialist language and it’s quite difficult because a lot of people have a fear of the dentist.”
Of the women surveyed, 14% said they have faced discrimination by healthcare providers while 25% experienced discrimination by a business, organisation or service provider.
Interviews with service providers also highlighted language barriers, a lack of interpretation and translation services and issues with privacy and confidentiality due to family and community members having to provide interpretation.
One service provider supporting women experiencing domestic abuse said: “We regularly get women talking about fear of confidentiality and interpreters potentially being a part of the community. There is a fear that information might get out to the wider community, and we find that actually impinges on women disclosing the full extent of the abuse that they’ve experienced.”
Leading the study was Dr Louise Harvey-Golding, who now hopes the findings will help raise awareness and improve access to healthcare and support services for Eastern European women living in the UK.
Dr Harvey-Golding, who is also Programme Leader for MSc Public Health at the University of Sunderland, said: “Due to a lack of translated materials and interpreters, Eastern European women rely heavily upon members from their community, and family members, including their own children, to provide this essential support informally.
“This is concerning for many reasons, such as Eastern European women’s rights to privacy, dignity, and confidentiality in their access to healthcare and support services, and the wellbeing of their children and family members. It also increases the women’s risk of victimisation and exploitation, if they are reliant solely upon family and community members to support their access to healthcare and support.
“We recommend that healthcare, support, and other public service providers ensure that translation of health information and interpreter services are more widely available to support those people living in the UK with language barriers, which create challenges in their ability to access healthcare and support services.
“We would also like to see more support from policymakers, including local authorities and governmental departments, to enable smaller, community-based organisations, who are often a lifeline for marginalised and minority populations, to provide translation and interpretation services.”
Julia Wysocka is a community development officer at ICOS. She supports a community group for Eastern European women living in the north-east.
Julia said: “We know from our conversations with Eastern European women, and service providers working at a grassroots level to support these women, that many of them face language barriers, which in turn create challenges in how they access and utilise healthcare and support services.
“Here at ICOS, we hope this study will not only give these women a voice to share their experiences, but it will spark positive change for more measures to be put in place, like interpreter services.”
The study is part of a larger piece of research by Dr Harvey-Golding’s team and ICOS into hate crime and discrimination towards Eastern European women living in the UK. Read more here: https://www.sunderland.ac.uk/more/news/university-news/2024/university-news-hate-crime-discrimination-research/