Overcoming language barriers.

Extracted from text ... EDITORIALS Patients experience significant barriers to accessing quality medical care. Foremost among these are socioeconomic, structural and cultural/linguistic barriers. Studies also focus on the potential implications of alternative explanations for disease. In the African setting these alternative explanatory models are often regarded as a cause for decreased assessment of severity, 1 late presentation, 2, 3 non-adherence to medical treatment4 and the use of potentially dangerous traditional remedies.5, 6 Three articles in this issue address language and cultural barriers in two settings in the public health service in the Western Cape. Schlemmer and Mash7 describe the effects of language barriers ..