Taiwan’s medical facilities are addressing language barriers faced by the growing foreign population through new multilingual resources. With over 960,000 foreigners in Taiwan, including 829,000 migrant workers, healthcare professionals have collaborated with the “Listener” platform to develop accessible healthcare solutions.
The initiative has produced multilingual pharmacy cards, medication labels, and health examination cards in Vietnamese, Indonesian, and other languages. These resources originated with pharmacist Wu Zhi-kai (吳至鎧) from Qixing Pharmacy, who noticed communication challenges with foreign customers. Working alongside second-generation pharmacist Li Wan-hua (李婉華), they compiled common medical terms and questions into translated visual cards that allow patients to simply point to express their needs.
Pharmacist Hu Ting-yue (胡廷岳) subsequently partnered with the platform to create multilingual medication labels, assisting foreign caregivers in understanding medication instructions for their patients. In 2023, Chiayi Christian Hospital’s Dr. Yeh Yi-ting (葉怡廷) also contributed to developing multilingual health examination cards after recognizing that migrant workers from industrial zones had limited understanding of their health check results and follow-up recommendations.
These free resources are available for download by clinics and pharmacies across Taiwan, with the platform requesting users to respect copyright and avoid modifications to maintain information accuracy.