Health app for Inuit now available on Android
Tool offers a bilingual English-Inuktitut audio translation service
The Tukisiutik app offers a three-language translation for Inuit seeking medical help.(Screenshot courtesy of Tukisiutik, NRBHSS)
Updated on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 at 2:45 p.m. ET
A new health app that makes it easier for Inuit patients to communicate with their health-care providers is now available for Android users.
The Tukisiutik application provides audio translations in English, French and Inuktitut for health-related vocabulary such as parts of the body and symptoms.
It is downloadable for free on Android, the Nunavik Board of Health and Social Services announced in a news release Monday.
The app was made available for iOS users in the fall.
Described as a “pioneering health tool,” the app offers three tabs — body, symptoms and pain level. With just a few clicks, the app takes care of providing audio translations in all three languages for what part of the body the patient may point to, what symptoms they are feeling, and their pain.
Next to those three tabs is a volume symbol, which opens up a list of questions, directives, interventions and follow-up related sentences.
“The launch of Tukisiutik on Android, combined with the updated iOS app, ensures even more Inuit, regardless of their device or location, can benefit from this important tool,” Nathalie Boulanger, director of professional services at Ungava Tulattavik Health Centre, said in the release.
The app was produced from a collaboration between Health Canada and the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer.
Correction: This article has been updated from its originally published version to correctly report in the sub-headline that the new app offers an English-Inuktitut translation service.
Kitikmeot need the app as well ! Woyld help alot more ppl stigmatized by our healthcare providers , this app needs to be used al over nunavut too .
A step in the right direction, but I’m not sure how this will help?
Kitikmeot needs it I agree also, not all Communities use sylabbics, West Qitiqmeot uses english.
Taloyoak, Gjoa Haven and Kugaaruk only read and writes in Inuktitut.
also, not Everyone in Nunavut understands Baffin Dialects,
Kivalliq dialect should be the main tongue translated in Nunavut, Us Qitiqmeot understands Kivalliq more then Baffin Dialect.