At first glance, the instructions are filled with concern for the patient, [writes](https://www.grani.lv/latvia/161871-bolnica-imeni-stradinsha-na-priem-s-perevodchikom.html) Grani.lv. It notes that during a visit, a patient has to process a large amount of information, and due to anxiety, stress, or haste, they may forget to ask an important question, misunderstand the doctor's words, or fail to remember recommendations. Therefore, the administration advises preparing for the appointment — to write down the main symptoms and observations about their condition in advance, gather information about previous treatments, and also compile a list of questions. Moreover, the instructions provide a sample list of questions, very detailed, helping the patient describe where, what, and how exactly they are feeling pain. Reasonable advice? Of course, there is nothing to deny here. Next in the instructions is a section on how to behave during the visit itself. The patient is encouraged to bombard the doctor with the following questions: "What is my diagnosis? Are there other explanations?", "What tests confirm the diagnosis?", "What are the possible risks or side effects?", "What should I do if I get worse or the treatment doesn’t help?", "What is this medication for?" and so on. And here one wants to ask the authors of the instructions, as in a joke: "Dad, who are you talking to?" After all, all these pieces of advice — about "what diagnosis", "what treatment", "what risks", and "how to take" — should be directed by the administration to their doctors. The patient should not have to extract this information from the doctor with difficulty, peeking at a reminder and counting on their fingers, worried that they forgot to ask something. It is the doctor's duty to convey all necessary information in an understandable form, as required by law. But what is more concerning is the recommendation on the very first page of the booklet, which states: "If you are concerned that you will have difficulty fully understanding the information provided by the doctor during the visit (due to your health condition, age, or language), we recommend that you bring a close person or a translator who can assist you." From this recommendation, it logically follows that the patient will be spoken to only in the state language. Hence the question — what if the patient cannot afford a translator? If they are living on a meager pension, managing to get an appointment with a specialist through the state quota, but have no relatives who could translate during the visit — what then? Why doesn’t the hospital administration provide advice on this matter? Yes, the requirement that the doctor can only speak in the state language is absolutely legal. Its implementation was personally pushed by Health Minister Hosam Abu Meri, under whose initiative the Patient Rights Protection Law was enriched with a new clause: "If the patient does not speak the state language and only speaks a language that the treating person does not understand, the patient invites a person who provides translation." So, Russian-speaking patients, who poorly know Latvian, now cannot even utter a word. But the question remains — what should they do? There is no doubt how the great Latvian surgeon Pauls Stradins, after whom the hospital that issued this instruction is named, would have answered this. He studied at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg and did not divide patients by language. The founder of clinical oncology in Latvia, the founder of the Institute of Experimental Medicine, the Riga Medical Institute, the Museum of the History of Medicine would never have thought of such nonsense. Because a doctor is a special profession, where the leading motive is to help, alleviate suffering, save lives, and Stradins proved throughout his life that this is indeed the case. But in the hospital named after him, it seems they think otherwise.
