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This is a chronicle. Analysis and opinions are the author's own.

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When I presented my first draft of this chronicle, my colleague said “it's good, but a little narrow, can you write something about it that caught me?”

Ovdje je...

A health centre in a small town in Sweden had a patient who was at risk of diabetes. The patient, who did not speak Swedish, therefore had an interpreter with him during the medical examinations. Although the patient received information about the risks of diabetes and instructions for what they needed to change, so as not to risk getting one of Sweden's largest folk diseases, neither the test results nor the patient's will showed any change.

The doctor, having gotten to know the patient, googled the patient's country of origin. There it emerged that the main language in the homeland was not French, which was the language that had been interpreted, but a less common language that the doctor had never heard of. After talking with the region's contracted interpreter agency, they were told “we don't have that language, so we booked in French”. The doctor asked if it was not possible to find an interpreter in the less common language, but the intermediary replied “it will be too expensive, the need is too small”.

The above situation is all too common when authorities choose to place too much emphasis on price in their procurement. The winner in the lowest price evaluation is only the supplier itself. The losers will be many; the patient, the healthcare worker, the health service, the community and the taxpayers. By setting a fair price and evaluating quality already in the procurement phase, you can ensure that you get the best possible partner. Something that is particularly important when it comes to areas that may include people's lives, such as in health care, social services or the courts.

By setting a fair price and evaluating quality already in the procurement phase, you can ensure that you get the best possible partner.

There must be no mistake, and the public sector needs to shoulder its responsibilities by ensuring this through tenders that guarantee the quality of what is procured.

How was it for the patient?

The health centre chose to contact another interpreter agency — an interpreter service that offered the requested language. The patient understood the instructions and prompts of the nursing staff because they received the information in their native language. Three weeks later, the doctor called and told him that all of the patient's values pointed downwards and that if they continued on the wrapped trajectory, the patient would be out of the risk zone.

Imagine how much money and suffering could have been saved if the other interpreter agency had been a tendered supplier from the start.