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Visitors to Wash. Hts. hosp lost in translation

June 16, 2005
BY LESLIE CASIMIR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

When Vincente Mayorga went to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center recently, he asked for a Spanish-speaking interpreter who could help him tell doctors of his back pain.
The closest the Ecuadoran immigrant said he got was a brochure - in English - about the hospital's translation services.

"He [the interpreter] said he was sorry, but that he was very busy," said Mayorga, 51, who suffers from four herniated discs. "I can't explain to the doctors what it is I'm feeling and I can't understand them, either."

Saying Mayorga's experience is not unique, a coalition of Latino groups plans to protest outside the Washington Heights hospital today to demand it hires more interpreters.

"There have been a lot of horror stories about going to Columbia Presbyterian - having to wait too long because there is no one available to translate, relying on family or other patients to speak to the doctor for you," said Moisés Perez, executive director of Allianza Dominicana, a Washington Heights social service agency.

Last month, talks with Hispanic groups to address the problem broke down when hospital administrators declined to sign an agreement that would increase its interpreter staff and allow community monitoring, among other things.

Hospital officials insist there is no language gap and that they are in compliance with federal, state and city laws that mandate hospitals provide interpreters.

Rick Evans, director of the Volunteer & Patient Centered Services, who oversees interpreter services at the hospital, said he has seven Spanish interpreters devoted to the emergency room, spaced out over three shifts. Seven others are dispatched to other departments within the hospital, Evans said.

Columbia Presbyterian receives nearly 300 formal requests per day for interpreters, Evans said. About 90% of those requests are for Spanish speakers. Evans said the hospital spends $2 million for interpreter services alone. "I think we are doing a really good job of putting together a system that can meet the need anytime of day," Evans said. Andrew Friedman, the executive director of the Brooklyn-based Make The Road By Walking, the advocacy group that has been spearheading a citywide campaign to close the language gap at hospitals, said not enough is being done.

In a recent survey the group did of 105 Spanish-speaking patients visiting Columbia Presbyterian, 71 people said they were unable to communicate with their doctors, he said.

Originally published on June 16, 2005