SINGAPORE - The growth in medical tourism has seen more interpreters being used to bridge communication gaps between doctors and patients in recent years, especially in private healthcare.

But at one hospital, its only full-time interpreter is making the rounds at its emergency department for a very homegrown group: Elderly patients who speak only dialects.

Ms Chew Mui Leng's fluency in four dialects - Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese and Hainanese - all goes to making the trip to the National University Hospital less daunting for these patients.

Possibly the first dialect interpreter hired by public hospitals here, Ms Chew, 45, chats up an average of 20 patients a day. She is on hand during patients' consultations with doctors who are unable to speak their dialect.

Sometimes, she lingers afterwards to explain various conditions and treatments in further detail.

Previously, NUH tapped the language and dialect abilities of existing staff. But, after "constant feedback" from them, it started the role of dialect interpreter eight months ago in order to not distract them from their "core responsibility", said Ms Clara Sin, deputy operations director of NUH's emergency medicine department.

NUH discovered Ms Chew's language abilities when she was hired as temporary staff to do temperature screening during the height of the H1N1 scare last year.

"The biggest challenge has been my lack of medical knowledge," she said. She has now acquainted herself with terms such as "SOB" (shortness of breath).

She can also see how appreciative the elderly patients are.

For example, one Teochew speaking patient who was suspected of having H1N1 last year was so comforted by her presence, that "the patient kept holding on to my hand", she recounted.

Responding to MediaCorp's queries, Singapore General Hospital, KK Women's and Children's Hospital and Alexandra Hospital said the need has not arisen for such a role.

Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Changi General Hospital did not respond by press time.

"We're a big hospital and have the advantage of many staff who are proficient in local dialects to help communicate with elderly patients who speak only dialects," said Mrs Tan-Huang Shuo Mei, SingHealth and SGH group director of communications and service quality.

At AH, a quick Intranet check shows the languages and dialects spoken by staff. It has also hired two Bangladeshi interpreters since 2006 to do Bengali-English translations due to the volume of Bangladeshi worker patients.

NUH wants to hire two more dialect interpreters to offer the service seven days a week.

They must know at least two dialects, as well as English and Mandarin.

Private hospitals' interpretation services have also got more sophisticated.

Parkway Hospitals, for example, can call on interpreters for five languages - Vietnamese, Arabic, Russian, Bahasa Indonesia and Bengali - to translate over the phone, or in person.