Interpreters of maladies

It is with remarkable ease that A Waheed discusses the complicated medical case of a young Kuwaiti man who was rendered paralysed post a tragic accident back in his home country a couple of years ago ldquoHe was driving his new car at around 180 km to 200 km per hourrdquo says Waheed when we meet him at his sparsely decorated apartment in Kurla ldquoHe lost control of the car which soon turned turtle His friend who was also with him died on the spot while he sustained serious injuries to his spinal cord due to which he was immobile neck down and had to move around in a wheelchairrdquo elaborates the 29yearold with the air of someone who knows the medical case intimatelyIllustration Amit BandreThis is no misplaced assumption Waheed does in fact know the case history like the back of his hand as the boy and his mother travelled to Mumbai after the accident for treatment And it was right here in the city that Waheed met the griefstricken family in his capacity as senior Arabic translator mdash someone who would help bridge the linguistic gap between the patient and the doctorIn the course of several doctorsrsquo visits consultations and nailbiting diagnosis at a leading city hospital Waheed who also runs the website wwwarabicexpertin grew close to the family mdash so much so that he even travelled to Kerala on the motherrsquos request to check out the statersquos many Ayurvedic centres for her sonrsquos treatment ldquoI went to Kerala as the boyrsquos uncle had to go back to Kuwait because his sister was sick After I came back from Kerala the mother took her son to an Ayurvedic centre and stayed there for 15 to 20 days for treatment but there was no improvementrdquo he says adding that the family eventually went on to meet doctors in Delhi Bangkok and even France ldquoWe still remain in touch She is very anxious about her sonrsquos treatment That is a motherrsquos loverdquo he smiles sadlyA money spinning industryArabic translators such as Waheed are indispensable to what is undisputedly a moneyspinning industry Consider the statistics According to a 2014 report by Punjab Haryana Delhi PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry the Indian medical tourism industry is lsquoexpected to reach 6 billion around R36000 crore by 2018 as the number of patients arriving in the country for treatment is expected to double over the course of the next four yearsrsquoA Waheed at his Kurla residence PicAnu PrabhakarSo how important are these Arab translators Anandswarup Joshi of the Vikhrolibased medical tourism company Samaira Global Wellness recalls the time he inadvertently hired a translator who couldnrsquot speak Arabic fluently ldquoI hired him based on the recommendation of a contact But it was so difficult as he was unable to translate what the patients had to say to the doctors Ultimately we had to call the patientrsquos doctor in Yemen to find out the medical historyrdquo says Joshi Although figures vary experts from the field say such translators are on an average hired for R4000 to R5000 for eight hourslsquoMadrassas do not teach jihadi to studentsrsquoInterestingly as a recent magazine report pointed out such job opportunities have managed to successfully absorb former students of madrassas who spend years learning religious texts such as the Quran and Hadees and have a strong knowledge of the Arabic language Although efforts are on to update the curriculum followed in these educational institutions the Arabic translators we speak to explain that primary importance was placed on learning religious texts over other subjects such as scienceSo question Waheed who graduated from a madrassa in Lucknow about how he manages to translate difficult medical terms into English and Arabic and he explains that athough he found it difficult to translate patientsrsquo and doctorsrsquo conversations early in his career today he faces no such issues ldquoWe search the Internet for medical termsWe also keep reading articles in the health section of international publications and newspapers Through all this we remain uptodate on medical news and terminologiesrdquo he saysHe also points out that like any other educational institution in India especially the governmentrun ones madrassas too have their own perks and shortcomings ldquoThere is a good environment in madrassas to learn But in the 10 years we spent at the madrassa we were taught the same things repeatedly The curriculum was not updated as per modern standardsrdquoWhen he completed his studies in 2005 and shifted to Mumbai the translator himself felt a little anxious about his future before the chance to work as an Arabic translator came knocking ldquoStudents in madrassas need to be taught that besides leading others in prayer and teaching in a madrassa there are other fields that one can explore like medicine engineering civil services and so on They must feel that they have some value in the society that what they have learnt will not go to wasterdquo he explainsldquoMadrassa students are very hardworking and many of them have reached great heightsrdquo he continues ldquoAnd such institutions are portrayed by the media is a bad manner and they say that madrassas teach jihad to students But that is not truerdquoThirtytwoyearold Thanebased Arabic translator Mehboob Jaffer Khan who studied in a madrassa for seven years agrees that his limited knowledge in science never posed a problem in the job ldquoScience wasnrsquot taught to us in detail in my madrassa but that is okay Today we have Google And if a medical term is too tough for us to understand we can always ask the doctor to explain the meaning to us and we can paraphrase it for the patientsrdquo he explainsHospitalsrsquo inhouse translatorsHospitals all over the country have already cashed in on the boom in the industry by hiring inhouse Arabic translators Joshi explains that while some hospitals have translators on a case to case basis other have inhouse translators For instance according to the Andheri Westbased Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital and Medical Research Institutersquos website they have dedicated international patient coordinators and language interpreters One such translator from a leading city hospital explains on the condition of anonymity ldquoWe explain everything to patients beforehand mdash like the pain they may feel say after a surgery and so on We always accompany them during doctorrsquos rounds and consultations depending on how badly they need a translator There have also been times when patients first tell me the moment they experience pain even before they tell the doctor Since we meet under stressful circumstances we inevitably form a bondrdquo he explains ldquoWe also tweak their food at the hospital depending on their dietary preferences If they prefer say shawarma we try and make it available to themrdquo he explainsWhen we tell Waheed that we would probably find it impossible to translate such medical terms into our own mother tongue he laughs ldquoAnd I may find it difficult to translate them into any other language like Hindi or Marathirdquo he chuckles