Poster Presentations (Group I)

MIC Kanagawa is a non-profit organization in Kanagawa prefecture, Japan.  It is located next to Tokyo and has a long history of international trading, as there is a large port.  Due to this reason, Kanagawa is ranked fourth with foreign residents registration.  Among total 2.01 million registers in Japan, there are about 1.7 million residents who cannot speak Japanese.  Recently, the number of such permanent residents (“denizen”) is increasing. 

MIC Kanagawa was established in 2002 to support people with limited-Japanese proficiency when they need to visit hospitals.  We are the largest organization in Japan holding 170 qualified medical interpreters with ten different target languages.  Interpreters are dispatched to 48 hospitals within the prefecture. 

MIC Kanagawa has a thorough mechanism of recruitment.  We screen candidates by asking them to interpret in the hospital setting role-playing and our senior interpreters check accuracy of candidates' performance.  Registered interpreters need to attend training twice a year. 

The operation will be funded half by the local government and half by our own revenue by the end of this fiscal year. Although we are outstanding in the actual achievement, there are serious problems. 

One is the discontinuation of the government funding support, which now allows us to pay $29 per case to an interpreter.  The other is the social enlightenment.  The concept of the medical interpretation is not yet recognized.  So we must appeal the necessity of health care interpreters through seminars as an example.In my talk, I would like to report in detail about the history and the future of our organization.  I will also touch upon the uniqueness of Japanese society comparing with the U.S.