Mons is home to the CHU Ambroise Paré and, in Casteau, the NATO headquarters in Europe - the SHAPE. More than 4,000 military personnel and civilians from 28 member nations are stationed there with their families. This unique reality makes Mons the Belgian city where multilingual medical translation is the most strategically demanding: English, German, Turkish, Polish, Spanish, and many other NATO languages cross paths there every day in the corridors of the university hospital and the medical practices.
The CHU Ambroise Paré and the SHAPE international community
The CHU Ambroise Paré is the university hospital of Mons, affiliated with the Université de Mons (UMONS). It provides a wide range of specialised care for the population of western Hainaut and regularly receives patients from the SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), the supreme headquarters of the allied forces in Europe, located in Casteau, less than ten kilometres from the city centre.
The NATO personnel stationed in Casteau come from all 32 member countries of the Alliance: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Turkey, Poland, Spain, Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Bulgaria, and many others. Each of these nationals may find themselves hospitalised at the CHU Ambroise Paré with a medical history written in their national language, a prescription from a military physician of their country, and a family that does not understand French.
The spouses and children of NATO personnel also constitute a specific medical population: deliveries, paediatrics, general medicine, dentistry - all of this care generates documents that must be translated for the return home or for the continuity of care in another NATO country at the next posting.
STANAG medical documents and SOFA forms
The Atlantic Alliance has developed standardised procedures to facilitate medical transfers between member countries. The STANAG (Standardization Agreement) medical forms define the formats of medical records recognised by all NATO countries, the triage protocols and the medical evacuation procedures. These forms exist in English, the official language of NATO, but must often be completed or accompanied by documents in the national language of the patient or the host country.
The SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) governs the rights and obligations of military personnel deployed outside their country. Its medical dimension is significant: in the event of an accident, illness or injury, the obligations of medical care, the rights to compensation and the repatriation procedures depend on the applicable SOFA. The medical documents produced in this context - medical assessments, fitness reports, on-duty accident reports - must be translated with a dual medical and legal precision.
The JAG (Judge Advocate General), the legal service of NATO, handles the compensation dossiers for on-duty accidents. These dossiers systematically comprise medical reports, permanent disability assessments and projections of future care costs. Our bilingual medical-legal translators (English-French, German-French, Turkish-French) are trained for this type of document.
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NATO medical translation and CHU Ambroise Paré in Mons
SHAPE, STANAG, SOFA, international military personnel: medical translations in 28 NATO languages. Medical and legal precision guaranteed.
Multilingual surgical consent forms: a legal and ethical obligation
The Belgian law of 22 August 2002 on patient rights requires that a patient be informed in a language they understand before any medical procedure. For a Turkish soldier or a Polish spouse who presents at the CHU Ambroise Paré, this obligation implies that the surgical consent form be translated into their language, or failing that that a qualified interpreter be present during the explanation.
In the Mons practice, we regularly produce surgical consent forms in English, German, Turkish, Polish and Spanish for the CHU Ambroise Paré and the private clinics of the region. These translations are validated by bilingual health professionals to ensure that the wording remains comprehensible for a non-physician patient, in line with the recommendations of the Ethics Committee.
The EpiCURA, hospital network of western Hainaut which covers Ath and Mouscron in addition to the Mons region, is also concerned by these needs. Its patients include cross-border workers and residents from the recent waves of immigration, who are not all French-speaking. EpiCURA regularly entrusts us with translations of patient information documents and consent forms.
UMONS medical research and occupational medicine for foreign researchers
The Université de Mons (UMONS), through its Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, conducts clinical and biomedical research programmes. The international researchers joining the Mons research teams must be able to access the protocols, the patient information notes and the progress reports in English or in their language. Conversely, the UMONS research publications intended for international journals must sometimes be translated from English into French for submissions to French-language journals or for funding reports.
Occupational medicine within the UMONS and the CHU Ambroise Paré also reaches an international audience: the post-doctoral researchers and visiting researchers, some of whom come from Asia, South America or Africa, need their medical fitness for work to be assessed and documented in a language comprehensible to them and to their institution of origin.
The HELHA (Haute École Louvain en Hainaut), an important paramedical training school present in Mons, regularly sends students on placement abroad as part of Erasmus programmes. The placement agreements, the health certificates and the competency validations that accompany these mobilities must sometimes be translated into English, Spanish or Portuguese.
Indicative timelines and rates for Mons
| Type of medical document | Indicative rate | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Multilingual NATO/SHAPE medical record (20 pages) | 200-400 € | 24-48h |
| Surgical consent (per language) | 80-160 € per language | 24h |
| STANAG medical form | 100-200 € | 24h express |
| Military forensic medicine report (JAG) | 200-450 € | 48-72h |
| International NATO transfer record (repatriation) | 150-350 € | 24-48h |
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SHAPE NATO, CHU Ambroise Paré, UMONS: medical translations in all the languages of the Alliance. Patient records, STANAG, surgical consent forms - express delivery.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Does the CHU Ambroise Paré have a translation service for the SHAPE patients?
The CHU Ambroise Paré has informal agreements with community interpreters for the most common oral consultations, notably in English. However, it does not have an integrated certified written translation service. For the written documents - medical records, discharge letters, test results, surgical consent forms - the SHAPE patients must call on an external translation agency. The SHAPE Medical Centre, located within the headquarters, can direct the personnel to trusted providers. TranslateBE works directly with the SHAPE personnel and their families, as well as with the administrative services of the university hospital that need urgent translations.
Which languages are most requested for the NATO medical records in Mons?
The most requested languages for the medical translations linked to the SHAPE and the NATO community of Mons are, in order of frequency: English (NATO working language, very much requested in both directions FR-EN and EN-FR), Turkish (Turkey is the second largest troop contributor of NATO), German, Polish, Spanish and Dutch. We have experienced medical translators in all of these languages, including for less common pairs such as Bulgarian, Romanian, Greek or Albanian for the more recent member countries of the Alliance.
Must a STANAG medical form be translated by a sworn translator?
A STANAG medical form does not systematically require a sworn translation in the Belgian legal sense. The NATO procedures recognise translations produced by professional translation agencies, provided that the translation is accompanied by a statement from the translator attesting to its fidelity to the original. However, when a STANAG form is used in a compensation procedure (JAG), a military pension dossier or a disability pension application with national authorities, a sworn translation may be required depending on the requirements of the destination country. We offer both options: standard certified translation or sworn translation by a sworn translator registered with the Court of Mons.
How do I obtain the translation of a 100-page medical record on an urgent basis for a NATO transfer?
For a 100-page record on an urgent basis, our procedure is as follows. First, we quickly assess the content: not all documents are of equal importance. The operative reports, the recent biological results, the current prescriptions and the allergies take priority over the old administrative correspondence. Second, we mobilise a team of two to three medical translators on the same language pair, with a project manager who ensures terminological consistency. Third, we deliver by sections: the priority documents within 6 to 8 hours, the complete set within 24 to 36 hours depending on the actual volume. For urgent NATO transfers, we are available at the weekend and on public holidays. Contact us directly by telephone in these critical situations.