Ibiza Drops Language Barrier

Published 22 September 2011 Stephen White.

Tags: Health and Beauty, Ibiza News

should be able to recruit the best staff possible

A major decision has just been taken at Balearic Government level which will open the way to improvements in the health service in Ibiza as the requirement that all health service professionals should speak Catalan has finally been dropped.

Recruiting any professionals to work on the island has always been difficult as  the peninsular Spanish see it as an expensive backwater, so why make life doubly difficult by specifying that anybody wanting a job here should speak a language used by only a fraction (less than one fifth) of the country's population?

There is an argument that language is more than just a form of communication and that it is part of the psyche and identity of both individuals and the society which speaks it. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages was signed to prevent discrimination against minority language speakers – don't forget that Catalan was banned by Franco after the Civil War – and local people feel very strongly about being able to speak their language openly now.

However, these days all Ibicencos are perfectly bilingual in Catalan and Castillian Spanish so would perfectly understand a Spanish explanation of the life saving procedures being carried out on them in our local hospital.

With over 134,000 people in its catchment area the hospital should be able to recruit the best staff possible from as wide an area as possible, so well done to all concerned for removing this barrier.

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