Multilingual resources and Translated material

Facilitating Healthcare Access

HSE My Health, My Language

HSE National Social Inclusion Office in conjunction with HSE National Screening Service and HSE Mental Health have developed a series of videos entitled “My health, my language” for migrants and international protection applicants to give them information on healthcare in Ireland.

About the Irish Health System: A guide for refugees and other migrants

The guide is in three parts.

  1. Part 1 gives information on how to access different types of health care, the services that are free and how the GP, Pharmacy and hospital systems work.
  2. Part 2 gives information about specialist services (dental treatments, eye tests, hearing aids, vaccinations) and some of the staff you may meet in the health system.
  3. Part 3 advises what to do in an emergency.

About the Irish Health Service PRINT poster with QR codes in 21 languages

About the Irish Health Service WEB poster with QR codes in 21 languages

HSE GP visit card

Posters with information on the GP visit card, available in English,  Irish, Polish, Romanian, Portuguese, Lithuanian, Chinese, Latvian, Ukrainian,  Arabic.

Cairde healthconnect.ie 

A multilingual website which provides information on health services in Ireland including GP Practices, hospitals, maternity and women's health and mental health.

Visit healthconnect.ie.   

HSE unplanned pregnancy support services

Interpreters can be provided in 240 languages. This service is free and confidential. Freephone 1800 828 010. You or someone on your behalf will need to tell us what language you speak and give us a phone number. An interpreter will then phone you back for a 3-way call between you, a MyOptions counsellor and the interpreter. 

My options freephone line

HSE Multilingual Aid

This aid helps health staff to communicate more effectively with patients. It is intended for use prior to asking for the services of an interpreter or while waiting for the interpreter to arrive. This is available in: 

Arabic, Bosnian, Chinese, Czech, French, German,Hungarian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Pashtu, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Somali, Ukrainian and Urdu.

Language identification card (PDF)

HSE 'I need to see the Pharmacist' translation aid 

Download the translation aid to assist in visiting the pharmacist in English/Arabic (docx)

HSE aids to translating foreign immunisation records

Aids to translating foreign immunisation records

HSE Quick chart of vaccine-preventable disease terms in multiple languages

Quick chart of vaccine preventable disease terms in multiple languages

Cairde Pathways To Being Well 

Cairde develops culturally appropriate information materials about health and health services in Ireland. Some are available in various languages. To access these resources, you can visit the Cairde website.

Health Services Intercultural Guide

Health Services Intercultural Guide: Responding to the needs of diverse religious communities and cultures in healthcare settings.

This is a resource to help health-care professionals to care for patients from diverse ethnic, religious and cultural groups. It is also available as an app - Understand me - free of charge from Google Play.

Lost in Translation? A guide for HSE staff

Lost in Translation? Good Practice Guidelines for HSE Staff in Planning, Managing and Assuring Quality Translations of Health Related Material and Other Languages.

HSE information for Roma communities

Health information available in English, Romanian, Czech and Slovak

Local support information for Roma in Cork and Kerry is collated in the following leaflets

English, Romanian, Czech and Ukrainian

COVID-19 resources

Child Health

HSE Mychild.ie books 0-2 years and 2-5 years

mychild.ie book for 0-2 year olds - English/Arabic (PDF)

mychild.ie book for 2-5 year olds - English/Arabic (PDF)

HSE Mychild.ie pregnancy and postpartum booklets

My Pregnancy book - English/Arabic (PDF)

HSE Postpartum (after giving birth) booklet - English (PDF)

HSE Postpartum (after giving birth) booklet - Romanian (PDF) 

Immunisation and Infectious Diseases

HSE Childhood Immunisation Programme

The Immunisation Calendar was designed to accompany HSE information on vaccinations.

FDYS Childhood Diseases

Leaflets developed by the Waterford and Wexford Roma Health Projects managed by the Integration and Support Unit and the Ferns Diocesan Youth Service; supported by HSE Social Inclusion and the Department of Public Health, Community Healthcare Organisation Area 5. The leaflet is available in English and Romanian.

The Childhood Diseases leaflet was designed to accompany HSE information on vaccinations.

HSE vaccination information (childhood, school and adult)

Get information relating to childhood, school and adult vaccinations

RSV collated resources

Collated RSV resources for Travellers, Roma and migrants including translated resources.

HSE Measles and MMR collated vaccine resources

HSE Measles and MMR collated vaccine resources (updated Sept 2024)

HSE Measles video and poster with QR codes 

The bi-lingual Youtube videos below in Romanian and English are available as a QR code poster

HSE flu vaccine information

The HSE has launched a flu vaccine campaign and produced leaflets for 1) at risk groups 2) healthcare workers 3) pregnant women 4) children and young people 

Translations are available in 9 languages: English, Irish, Arabic, Czech, French, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak and Ukrainian.

RSV and vaccine information Video/Leaflet (Pavee Point)

Romanian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcoN5WDOPH4

RSV and vaccine information leaflet in Romanian and English

RSV translated resources available in 12 languages here 

HPSC hepatitis B factsheets and leaflets

Hepatitis B information leaflets are available from the HSE Health Protection Surveillance Centre in multiple languages.

HIV treatment leaflets 

The HSE's Sexual Health and Wellbeing programme have treatment leaflets in French, Spanish and Portuguese. Their Prep information leaflet is also available in Portuguese. 

HSE tuberculosis (TB) leaflets

HSE patient information leaflets on TB are available in 14 languages.

Download the tuberculosis leaflets

Sexual health

HSE Your Guide to Sexually Transmitted Infections (sexualwellbeing.ie) available in French, Arabic, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Ukrainian

Contraception (sexualwellbeing.ie) currently available in 10 languages.

Keeping Well

Asthma Society of Ireland

The Asthma Education Inclusion Project consists of culturally appropriate, literacy-friendly asthma resources and materials for the Roma, Refugees, People Seeking International Protection and the Traveller community.

Visit the Asthma Society of Ireland website for resources

HSE keeping well in winter

My Medicines Lists and the 'Know, Check, Ask' campaign

The National Medication Safety Programme have produced a leaflet encouraging patients to ‘Know, Check, Ask’ in relation to their medicines.

The Know Check Ask campaign has been designed to help you KNOW your medicines and keep a list, CHECK that you are using the right medicine the right way, and ASK your healthcare professional if you’re unsure. One of the key resources from the Know, Check, Ask campaign is the ‘My Medicines List’; a list of all the medicines and supplements a person takes.

The medicines list is available in 52 languages.

HSE National Cervical Screening Programme

CervicalCheck website has a sample CervicalCheck information sheet and Cervical Screening form in several languages. These documents are to aid HSE staff in explaining what cervical screening is to participants where English is not their first language. However, it is important that you use the English screening form when you are submitting the screening sample.

English, Chinese, French, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Urdu, German, Hindi, Filipino, Arabic, Bengali, Croatian, Ukrainian, Vietnamese

HSE National Screening Service

Mental Health and Wellbeing

Cork Kerry Community Healthcare migrant health

Visit the Cork Kerry Community Healthcare migrant health website

Information includes:

  • Trauma and PTSD- what it is and what it feels like
  • How to manage sleeping and anxiety and other issues
  • Meditations

Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence (DSGBV)

HSE Cork/Kerry Animation on domestic violence - English (Youtube)

HSE Cork/Kerry Animation on domestic violence - Arabic (Youtube)

AkiDwA Women Support Services

Leaflet and poster for Domestic Violence available in English leaflet, Arabic poster, Arabic leaflet, French poster, French leaflet, Swahili poster, Swahili leaflet

Hill Street Family Resource Centre Domestic Violence poster

A poster developed by Hill Street Family Resource Centre (Dublin) is available in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Hindi,  Polish, Romanian, Russian.

Rape Crisis Network of Ireland

rapecrisishelp.ie is available in multiple languages. Just visit the site and choose your preferred language from the drop-down menu.

Women’s Aid Domestic Violence Videos

Women's Aid have developed videos to share the signs of domestic violence and how and where to access safe, supportive help in many languages.  

Visit the Women's Aid website

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

Rotunda Hospital Information Leaflet for Pregnant Women who have Previously Experienced Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in English, Arabic and Somali.

For information about the National Social Inclusion Office call: 01 778 5168, or Email: socialinclusion@hse.ie.