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The purpose of this report is to provide a portrait of the pool of certain groups of health care professionals who serve or who may be able to serve official-language minority communities (OLMC). In particular, it compares the proportional distribution of these professionals to that of minority populations.

In the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality 2008-2013: Acting for the Future announced by the minister of Official Languages in June of 2008, Health Canada mandated Statistics Canada to trace the state of affairs concerning health care professionals able to serve the official-language minority population in their language. 1 

The objective for Health Canada is to be able to better inform Canadians on the extent of the availability of health services in the official minority language throughout the regions of Canada in which there is a need for being served by a health care professional able to communicate with the patient in the preferred language of the latter. The results of this analysis and of any future study will serve to inform the managers of Health Canada programs aiming to increase the offer of health care workers in regions with the greatest needs.

To that effect, we have analysed linguistic data from the 2001 and 2006 Censuses to produce statistics on the number of doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers and other health care professionals in each province and territory who belong to the minority population, use the minority language at work, or report being able to conduct a conversation in that language. This information was then compared to the size of the official-language minority community in each jurisdiction. Comparing the relative weights of the various health care professionals and the minority population in these areas provides useful information for evaluating the relative situation of OLMCs in the country.

The situation of OLMCs varies between regions in Canada. Demographic characteristics may differ along with socio-economic conditions and the type of community. This diversity is also found in the size and density of the minority population and its distance from major centres. The statistics presented in this report have been calculated at the provincial/territorial level as well as for sub-provincial regions in those provinces where the largest number of official-language minority persons live, specifically, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario.

The data analysed in this report are obtained from the long census form, completed by one fifth of all Canadian households, except in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, where it is completed in each and every household. Due to the small size of the OLMCs in certain provinces, territories and sub-provincial regions, a lesser degree of precision can be achieved in estimating the size of the medical professional staff pool available to minority populations using official languages.

The pool of health care professionals available to members of OLMCs is measured in three ways. The first corresponds to a minimum estimate based on the health care professionals belonging to the OLMC. The second, middle measurement, documents the predominant or regular use of the minority language at work by these professionals. The third measurement corresponds to a maximum estimate based on the ability of health care professionals to conduct a conversation in the minority language. The latter estimate therefore represents a potential pool of health care providers in the minority official language with knowledge of the official minority language who, for some, use very rarely (less than regularly) or never use the official minority language at work but who could eventually offer their services to patients speaking that language. Furthermore, the estimate based on knowledge of the minority language includes both professionals for whom that language is their mother tongue or first official language spoken, as well as those whose first official language spoken is the other official language but who are able to carry on a conversation in the minority language.

Among the four groups of health care professionals considered in this report, nurses represent the largest group in terms of numbers. This group includes all registered nurses but not licensed practical nurses and nurse's aides.

General practitioners and family doctors make up the largest group of doctors. Specialist doctors are excluded from our analysis.

Language is the principal working tool of psychologists during consultations with their clients. For this reason, it was important to consider them as a separate group of health care professionals able to communicate in the minority language, even though there are fewer of them compared to the other health care professional groups.

The same is true of social workers. Furthermore, there are more social workers than general practitioners. 2 

Lastly, a fifth group, containing all other health care professionals not included in the other groups, is included in the analysis. Being a residual group, it is doubtlessly more heterogeneous than the other groups.

Context

According to the Société Santé en français, the quality of health services depends largely on the ability of people to be able to communicate in their own language. Understanding and being understood are crucial to the relationship between the individual and the health care provider. Communication is, and always will be, a key factor in the health of individuals and their communities. 3  (p.1). In the Summary of the 2008-2013 action plan, the Société believes, among other things, that the development and recognition of the language proficiency of health care professionals and information to users play a crucial role in the placement, recruitment and retention of Francophone health care professionals (ibid., p.4). Information on the number of health care professionals who use the minority language at work or who state that they are able to conduct a conversation in that language represents one of the pillars for developing a service offer to official-language minority communities.

In Quebec, Carter (2008) observes that "the active offer of services in English by professionals in the health and social services system is an important indicator of the ability of the [health and social services] system to adapt to the needs of Anglophone communities". 4  Moreover, the Community Health and Social Services Network of Quebec notes that "access to the full range of health and social services in English continues to pose challenges for service providers and communities alike in many regions of the province, including neighbourhoods in Montreal". 5 

Examining statistics on knowledge of the official minority language and use of that language at work by members of certain groups of health care professionals makes it possible to develop a portrait of the pool of professionals offering or likely to be able to offer services in that language. The report mentioned earlier points out that after several decades without health services in French, people have come to believe that it is impossible to receive them (ibid., p. 5).

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