Imagine you are a doctor, imagine you have to see a patient who cannot speak English, who cannot even understand what you are asking him.... He can't tell you what's wrong with him, he can't tell you if he has seen a doctor allready in another country or if he is allergetic to some medicine.
Isn't it obvious that there should be people able to speak foreign languages in hospitals and in emergency situations? Especially in touristic places like London, it is absolutely necessary to have foreign language speaking staff in order to communicate with the patients who cannot speak your language.
Furthermore, it is important to be able to read foreign languages, especially french and german if you need to work with medicine and drugs. Many products used in hospitals are indeed produced by french (Rhone-Poulenc AG) or german (Bayer AG) companies. Speaking french or german allows you to be informed quicker on the last researches on the effects and dangers of these products and is often a bonus when you want to work within these companies, even in branches situated within the UK.
As it is vital that leaflets accompagnying drugs are well translated, they are very often translated by people working in the medical sector who know the scientific speech much better than normal translators. Being able to speak another language is therefore a valuable bonus in this sector. It also encourages researchers from the whole world to work together and to save lifes together.
There are also jobs abroad for doctors and nurses speaking languages, for example in developping countries or in countries affected by wars, where there is a big need for health services. Languages are a serious advantage for everyone wanting to work for the Red Cross, MSF (Doctors without Borders) or other international health and humanitarian organisations.
