Penticton Regional Hospital-English Signs, a Floor Plan?

[my5cents]

A recent new topic entitled "Hey, they're Albertans", talking about a person who had selected the French language for his Royal Bank card. It turns out if you have, when you purchase a Calgary Transit ticket, it is printed in French. He complained that 4 times, bus drivers have accused him of forging transit tickets. French being an official language of Canada, he had a right to complain.

That got me thinking about an interesting occurrence and as a result observation at the Penticton Regional Hospital.

Actually two topics here. One, the signs over a reception area in the new David E. Kampe tower, and secondly the complete lack of availability of a floor plan for the hospital on line.

For some reason with the opening of the new tower, patients attending the hospital for scans (CT etc) must report to the front counter of the new tower. It seems to be the focal point now. The location in the hospital where the scans are conducted is still the same, ironically a short distance from the old location where one used to report in for the scans. One must now trek to the new tower first to report in.

The new fancy reception area is composed of a large curved desk area that extends into a wide hallway. When approaching from either side, from the front door or a long hallway that comes from the old buildings one can see the side of the curved counter extending into the hall area. There is a matching curved façade over the counter area with a word on it. The wording is repeated on the curved areas facing the front door and facing the long hall coming from the old area of the hospital and a third on the front.

I looked and looked at the sign, the letters looked like Klingon, or upside down and backwards Russian, have I had a stoke and all of a sudden words and letters a garbled ??? It's not French, although I don't speak or read French I've seen my share of the French side of corn flakes boxes to generally get the drift of a French word. But this is the main counter for, I think, the main reception of this hospital ?????

As I got to the counter, I actually stepped back away from the front of the curved desk (the front door, now to my left and the hall I came up extending to my right) and there was a word in English. "Reception" .
When I spoke to the clerk, I asked, what kind of language is that on the sign on the sides ? "Oh that's Aboriginal"

So, a hospital, where it's easy to get lost, or turned around in, that has signs everywhere to direct people all over the place. Has to be politically correct at the main entrance ?

I wonder how many people have attended that counter that couldn't read English and could only read whatever dialect of an Aboriginal language they used on the sign ? My guess ? NONE

Now as I say, I wasn't sure what the hospital called the area, "Reception" (I think) or "Information" (perhaps). So to compose this note, I thought I'd just quickly check the Internet for a floor plan of the hospital. YIKES !

What a mess.

Interior Health have a very glitzy site "Building Patient Care" site, lots of nice colors. "Look at us, look how great we are...." Floor plans, nope.

Lots of different sites, lots of information on how Interior Health are justifying their own jobs.

Note to Interior Health : If you are trying to inform people not directly involved in the details of a subject, refrain from the use of TLA's or FLA's. (ya, you didn't know what that was..... "Three/Four Letter Acronyms".)

Maybe they should have a floor plan to the MAIN RECEPTION DESK of the bloody hospital ! Maybe the main sign over that area that is seen from the two most important approaching directions should be in English !

I remember many years ago, governments decided to replace some signage for traffic. The wording was legally correct but confusing to some. I don't know exactly what the old wording said, something like "Illegal Entry Prohibited" (or something like that). They changed the signs to "WRONG WAY". They felt clear English was the way to go to get a message across to people.

Of course this is only a hospital, nothing of an emergency nature happens here.

[TylerM4]

Man, that's quite the wall of text. You are really passionate about this!

I've been there. Even a child could tell it's the main reception desk, do you really need a sign?

Yes, the provincial government has put a lot of effort into improving 1st Nations Care and Outcomes. You are obviously not aware of the studies that have shown a lingering reluctance of 1st nations people to seek care largely due to past experiences of 1st nations peoples. They are trying really hard to make 1st nations people feel welcomed and comfortable. You also don't seem to be aware that PRH (and Interior Health as a whole) serves many more 1st nations patients than they do French speaking. If they're going to use a 2nd language, it makes sense to use the 2nd most common language spoken by the patients.

Maps aren't prevalent for a reason. Hospital administration doesn't want patients/public wandering the halls. Patients must be registered/admitted at the appropriate reception desk 1st (hence why it's near the entrance) before going to wherever they meed to go anyway. Once you've been admitted/registered, they provide instructions where to go.

Rather than assuming that whomever built/runs PRH are a bunch of idiots, why not be curious and ask questions? You'll find that many times in life it's not the "other people" who are stupid or don't understand.

[my5cents]

Actually I thought even a child could understand the crux of the post.

"I've been there. Even a child could tell it's the main reception desk, do you really need a sign? ", OK then no sign at all, how'd that be ? Since likely 98% of the people attending the hospital can't read it anyway.

It's a hospital, firstly it needs to correctly and accurately address the needs of people entering. I suggest that would be with a sign that at the first visible area one sees, and to be in the language used by the vast majority of people entering.

Signs in a hospital are firstly to inform, not honor. Again, how many First Nation people don't read English ?? How many in our community can read, whatever dialect this was of an Indigenous language on the sign was, but can't read English.

Honoring First Nations, takes a back seat to this.

There could be an "Information" counter, a short distance away a "Check In" counter. If so, each with a person in attendance, you would know which by ???? Oh, yes, a sign.

I'd say this wasn't "Political Correctness", this was "Political Incorrectness".

[Anonymous123]

Man, that's quite the wall of text. You are really passionate about this!

I've been there. Even a child could tell it's the main reception desk, do you really need a sign?

Yes, the provincial government has put a lot of effort into improving 1st Nations Care and Outcomes. You are obviously not aware of the studies that have shown a lingering reluctance of 1st nations people to seek care largely due to past experiences of 1st nations peoples. They are trying really hard to make 1st nations people feel welcomed and comfortable. You also don't seem to be aware that PRH (and Interior Health as a whole) serves many more 1st nations patients than they do French speaking. If they're going to use a 2nd language, it makes sense to use the 2nd most common language spoken by the patients.

Maps aren't prevalent for a reason. Hospital administration doesn't want patients/public wandering the halls. Patients must be registered/admitted at the appropriate reception desk 1st (hence why it's near the entrance) before going to wherever they meed to go anyway. Once you've been admitted/registered, they provide instructions where to go.

Rather than assuming that whomever built/runs PRH are a bunch of idiots, why not be curious and ask questions? You'll find that many times in life it's not the "other people" who are stupid or don't understand.

I’m interested in how many people actually speak or can read the indigenous language these days.

[Trīewth]

If they're going to use a 2nd language, it makes sense to use the 2nd most common language spoken by the patients.

You are seriously contending that this has something to do with effective communication? There is no way that the prevalence of people in the area that speak Okanagan but have trouble with written English is that high. If the goal was to reach visitors in their mother language to improve health outcomes in the South Okanagan then it would make much more sense to have the sign in Punjabi.

It's the prevailing public policy to reflect the goals of recognition and reconciliation by placing signage with the local native language. For the most part this is innocuous, but let's not pretend it's something it's not.

[my5cents]

After my first post, I still couldn't believe that the sign over the reception desk at the entrance to the hospital was not in English. I though, that makes no sense, did I dream this ? Nobody would do that, especially not a hospital facility at the entrance, this is the first thing you see as you walk through the doors.

I was back there last week, yup. Of the three overhead (very large) signs over the reception area two are in whatever dialect of indigenous language they picked and the third is English. The one facing the front door and the one facing the other way into the area, from the balance of the hospital are the indigenous. The only English one faces the area where patients have already entered the hospital and are attending the various departments or sitting in waiting areas.

Makes no sense at all.

This is political correctness gone mad.

[Gilchy]

I cannot imagine getting this worked up over an olive branch.

[pentona]

After my first post, I still couldn't believe that the sign over the reception desk at the entrance to the hospital was not in English. I though, that makes no sense, did I dream this ? Nobody would do that, especially not a hospital facility at the entrance, this is the first thing you see as you walk through the doors.

I was back there last week, yup. Of the three overhead (very large) signs over the reception area two are in whatever dialect of indigenous language they picked and the third is English. The one facing the front door and the one facing the other way into the area, from the balance of the hospital are the indigenous. The only English one faces the area where patients have already entered the hospital and are attending the various departments or sitting in waiting areas.

Makes no sense at all.

This is political correctness gone mad.

I wasn't aware that the Indigenous language was the official second language of Canada. No sign with Francais on it?

[my5cents]

I wasn't aware that the Indigenous language was the official second language of Canada. No sign with Francais on it?

Nope, 2 Indigenous, 1 English

A sign in French, I could understand. Both figuratively and literally.