Dr. Joel Ray, a researcher on immigrant health at The Keenan Research Centre at St. Michael's Hospital, poses for a photo on a bridge between the research centre and the hospital in Toronto. Michelle Siu/The Globe and Mail

Health Care
How a simple translation tool is helping doctors and immigrants communicate
Dakshana Bascaramurty
Globe and Mail Update
Published Friday, May. 04, 2012 7:05PM EDT
Last updated Saturday, May. 05, 2012 12:20AM EDT

Now in use across the country, the guide is a simple tool – a computer-based list of phonetic pronunciations of medical symptoms and questions in the 15 most-spoken languages in Ontario – but it addresses a major obstacle that immigrants face when accessing health care.

“In the emergency department, if somebody comes in with a serious problem and there’s nobody there that speaks that language,” says Dr. Ray, 44, a clinician and researcher at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, “you immediately have a barrier to the information exchange that’s critical to finding out what’s wrong.”

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In one recent study, he identified a Caucasian bias in birth-weight standards used in most hospitals that could cause ethnic-minority newborns to be labelled as underweight. His revisions may reduce the need for unnecessary follow-ups, tests and worry among immigrant mothers.

In another study, he outlined the elevated risk for gestational diabetes for immigrant women, and called for improved ethnic classification (for example, “South Asian” instead of just “Asian”) so practitioners can evaluate patients more accurately.

Doctors and nurses are on the front lines with immigrant patients, Dr. Ray says, so hospitals should be ground zero for cultural innovation.

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Do you know an immigration innovator? The Globe would like to hear from you – nominate an innovator here.

Canada is attracting an increasing number of migrant workers, like this Mexican national harvesting tomatoes in Leamington, Ont., but experts say there is a lack of enforcement when employers violate the contracts. (Jason Kryk/Canadian Press)

Economy Lab
Changes to immigration policy could transform society
ARMINE YALNIZYAN
Globe and Mail Blog
Posted on Thursday, May 3, 2012 6:00AM EDT
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This week, the International Labour Organization noted there are 50 million fewer jobs in the global economy than before the financial crisis began in 2008. Some 200 million people are now looking for work.

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Roma speak out against refugee crackdown
By Tobi Cohen, Postmedia News May 3, 2012

OTTAWA – The government’s singling out of the Hungarian Roma community as justification for tough new refugee laws proposed in Bill C-31 is overtly racist and completely unfair, according to a community leader who says she’s stepping up to give Canada’s 80,000 European Gypsies a voice.

Toronto Roma Community Centre executive director Gina Csanyi-Robah was among the final witnesses to testify before a Commons committee reviewing the bill Thursday.

She asked the government to drop a key clause that would designate certain countries as “safe,” non-typical producers of refugees and fast-track applicants under the belief they are not bona fide claimants.

Facebook /Ramanan Mylvaganam pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. He faces up to 15-year imprisonment.

U.S. wants 15 years for Toronto man convicted in Tamil Tigers terror plot
Stewart Bell Apr 30, 2012 – 7:43 AM ET | Last Updated: Apr 30, 2012 7:44 AM ET

Ramanan Mylvaganam pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. He faces up to 15-year imprisonment.
The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking a 15-year prison sentence for a Canadian who pleaded guilty to terrorism conspiracy for his role in a plot to supply separatist rebels in Sri Lanka.

In a sentencing report filed in a Brooklyn, N.Y. court, U.S. attorney Loretta Lynch said Ramanan Mylvaganam had committed “a gravely serious offence” by attempting to procure equipment for the Tamil rebels.

“Any sentence other than a substantial sentence of incarceration risks undermining respect for the law by suggesting that a defendant can evade serious punishment for providing material support to a terrorist organization,” she wrote.