The right to health is a fundamental right recognized in a wide array of official documents, ranging from the Italian Constitution to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.<\/p>\n
For citizens, the choices and opportunities deriving from this right are manifold. It entitles them to live in a healthy environment, receive necessary medical care if they are sick and choose not to be treated if that is their wish.<\/p>\n
An important part of this right is having\u00a0access to patient information leaflets that accompany medicines<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 in their\u00a0native <\/strong>language<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It might seem banal, but patient informational leaflets are\u00a0documents of primary importance<\/strong>\u00a0because they enable patients to take their prescribed medication safely and correctly.<\/p>\n They include important information such as the composition of the medicine, therapeutic indications, consumption methods and dosages, storage requirements and any side effects.<\/p>\n The information contained in these leaflets complies with the content of the\u00a0Summary of Product Characteristics (SPC)<\/strong>, which is primarily targeted at healthcare workers such as doctors, nurses and pharmacists.<\/p>\n Unlike the SPC, however, the patient information leaflet is \u2013 as the name suggests \u2013 targeted at\u00a0patients<\/strong>. As such, it’s important that it be easy to understand. As we all know, taking a medicine improperly can have grave consequences for a patient\u2019s health.<\/p>\n Though it\u2019s certainly true that patient information leaflets should be easy to understand for all patients, it\u2019s also clear that other special factors are at play in bilingual regions such as Alto Adige in Italy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even though it\u2019s important to heed the advice of your doctor when it comes to taking medicine, the patient information leaflet is still a useful document that the patient can refer back to whenever they have doubts or simply want to get additional or more specific information on the medicine that\u2019s been prescribed to them.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not hard to see why it\u2019s so important to ensure that this valuable document be available in the native language of the patient.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t an issue in countries where just one language is spoken, but it can become one in regions such as\u00a0Alto<\/strong>Adige<\/strong>, in Italy, where there is a split between native speakers of German and Italian.<\/p>\n In these areas, where constant compromise is the only reason two languages can coexist side by side, legislators intervened to right a wrong that would have compromised the inhabitants\u2019 right to health.<\/p>\n Previously, patient information leaflets were only available in Italian, but Legislative Decree 283 of 29 May 2001 introduced \u201cmandatory bilingualism in medicine labeling and information sheets<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n Today, all medicine labels and information sheets produced in Trentino Alto Adige must be available in German too, in order to ensure that all citizens can understand them and avoid discrimination.<\/p>\n It’s certainly not a given that all citizens can understand specific medical terms in Italian, which is why it’s important for this information to be provided in German, the mother tongue of a large part of the local population.<\/p>\n Thanks to this change in the law, a German translation of the information leaflet can be printed by the pharmacist when a medicine is handed over.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Translating patient information leaflets<\/strong>\u00a0is therefore a way of\u00a0ensuring<\/strong>\u00a0that the\u00a0right <\/strong>to <\/strong>health<\/strong>\u00a0is respected, allowing all to access this information and thus take their\u00a0prescribed medication properly<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To translate such a document as important as a patient information leaflet for use in bilingual areas, it’s essential to use a professional service that can guarantee\u00a0terminological accuracy, uniformity, linguistic rigor and reliability<\/strong>.<\/p>\n At Way2Global, we provide quality services that tick all of those boxes, drawing on the experience and ongoing training of our\u00a0professional, native speaker translators<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In addition to the translation process, we also provide all the additional services required both before and afterward, including formatting, quality control, alignment, back translation (if requested), the production of\u00a0bilingual patient information leaflets<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0FIT forms in German Alto Adige<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s an honor and a privilege for us to help to protect the health of our fellow citizens through our translation services.<\/p>\n Need a\u00a0translation for the pharmaceutical sector?\u00a0Contact us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The right to health is a fundamental right recognized in a wide array of official documents, ranging from the Italian Constitution to the Universal Declaration of [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1755,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linguistic-services","category-news-from-way2global"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe importance of translating patient information leaflets for medications<\/strong><\/h2>\n