Reps from health care providers across the region, presented with French designation from North East LHIN; Photo Credit Angela Gemmill
Reps from health care providers across the region, presented with French designation from North East LHIN;
Photo Credit Angela Gemmill

By Angela Gemmill

When accessing health care in Ontario, it’s important to be able to express your needs, as well as understand instructions from doctors and nurses.

That’s why over 40 health care providers within the North East Local Health Integration Network (LHIN)  have now been officially designated under the French Language Services Act.

Representatives from each organization were presented with plaques today.

A few more are expected to recieve their designation in the coming months.

Maison Vale Hospice in Sudbury is still waiting for its designation, but Executive Director, Leo Therrien, says they’ve always offered French services, since they opened their doors in 2008.

He says it’s extremely important in end-of-life-care since residents at the hospice need to be able to express their feelings and tell staff when they’re in pain.

C-E-O Louise Paquette says designation means these 41 sites have a certain percentage of staff who also speak French.

She says many bilingual patients, who learned French as their first official language, revert back to their mother-tongue when they get older or are in a health crisis.

Paquette says sometimes meaning can be lost in translation and so a Francophone patient needs a health care provider who understands them.

The North East LHIN has the highest number of health care providers in Ontario, with Francophone designation.

Across the Northeast, 23%of the population associates French as their first language.

In Sudbury that number sits at 30%.