Thread: Hospitals hurting for interpreters

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Hospitals hurting for interpreters
This story was published Friday, July 22nd, 2005

By Andrew Sirocchi, Herald staff writer

To Natividad Heredia, the MRI machine at Kadlec Medical Center was as foreign as the language spoken by her nurses.

Heredia, a Pasco woman who speaks only Spanish, was at Kadlec on Wednesday, and for the first time submitted to a magnetic resonance imaging test. What would they do to her, Heredia wondered. Would she be sedated? Would doctors and nurses understand her if she told them she was claustrophobic?

"She was a little nervous," said Juan Zuniga, Kadlec's in-house interpreter. "Just knowing, in her own language, what's she's going through -- helps. Just knowing that if something happens, she can ask for help. That's reassuring, too."

Zuniga stood alongside Heredia's nurse Wednesday as the patient was rolled through the large tube-like MRI machine. The procedure went off without a hitch, but it shows that translation services such as Zuniga's increasingly are in demand these days.

A national report recently released by the Center for Immigration Studies found that in 2003 a record 23 percent of all births in the United States were to immigrant mothers, and that it's not just maternity wards that are in need for interpreters. All facets of the medical profession are finding they need to have more and fill the needs of their patients.

"It's skyrocketing," said Johnean Hansen, Kadlec's coordinator for interpreter services, of the need for bilingual speakers who can translate communications from doctors and nurses.

Hansen said Kadlec's need has grown so much since the hospital began monitoring its requests in 2000 that it may bring on a second Spanish-speaking interpreter. Zuniga works 40 hours per week, five days a week. The hospital needs more and uses two interpreting contractors to fill the void. In dire situations, Hansen said the hospital falls back on a phone-based interpreting service. Although that's never preferred, sometimes it's inevitable.

That's particularly true in the Tri-Cities. The Mid-Columbia ranks as one of the most linguistically diverse regions in Washington.

A study released by the U.S. English Foundation this year found 29 different languages prevalent in the Tri-Cities. In addition to English and Spanish, Laotian, German, French, Vietnamese, Russian, Ukrainian and Bosnian also are common. Others frequently heard include Chinese, Sudanese and Tagalog.

Hansen said Kadlec most often receives requests for Spanish-speaking interpreters, but added that the hospital's records also show demand for interpreters who speak Bosnian, Vietnamese, Laotian, Russian, Ukrainian and Mandarin.

Melanie Jones, spokeswoman for Lourdes Medical Center in Pasco, said Lourdes has hired an in-house Spanish-speaking interpreter to address the most common needs of immigrant patients and also tries to hire other bilingual staff.

But that can be challenging, Jones said, especially when all types of medical staff are in high demand.

"When you begin to hire people who are qualified for a position and also meet the requirement of speaking another language, the applicant pool is much smaller," Jones said. "You're looking for a physician who is an OB/GYN who has 'X' years of experience and speaks a different language as well as English. The applicant pool for that position is going to be much smaller."

That hasn't stopped Lourdes from trying, particularly because the demographics show the immigrant population is growing and will continue to do so.

The Center for Immigration Studies reported that 2002's record high percentage of births to immigrant mothers was part of a trend that began in 1970.

While the center acknowledges that a larger immigrant population base partly is responsible, those already residents of America are having fewer babies themselves.

In Washington state, for example, immigrant births doubled from 1990 to 2002. In 2002, though, U.S. citizens living here had fewer children than any time since 1980, according to the center's statistics.

Lourdes doesn't ask prospective mothers where they were born, Jones said, but there is evidence that the need for interpreters in the Mid-Columbia is growing.

Yakima County already is among the 50 counties in the United States where immigrants accounted for the largest share of births in 2002, the center's reports indicate.

And while more than 17,000 immigrant children and parents in Washington state lost public health coverage since the elimination of a public medical assistance program in 2002, hospitals and medical centers expect to continue working toward increasing their interpreting base.

"Everybody has the right to have their medical needs communicated to them in a language they can understand," Kadlec's Hansen said. "Whether it be in English -- because doctors speak in their own medical jargon -- or sign language."

I have a wild idea just on the top of my head, LEARN TO SPEAK ENGLISH!

Pro

Yes, but schools cost money too! My wife took a 4 month course here in Aurora, CO. It was ppaid for with federal funds believe it or not and my wiffe told me everyone there was illegal except for her and ONE other lady. About 25 in all!

http://home.businesswire.com


July 29, 2005 12:54 PM US Eastern Timezone

Nation's Hospitals Deal with Patients Speaking Many More Languages; Mid-year Statistics Show Significant Rise in Key States

TUCSON, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 29, 2005--Major points of immigration, such as California and New York, have a significant rise in the number of languages needed for hospital patients.


California has seen a mid-year rise of 22 percent to 94 different languages compared to mid-year 2004. For New York state, the increase is 15 percent to 101 languages.

CyraCom, the country's largest hospital-focused provider of language services, compiles mid-year statistics from more than 700 hospitals. National and key state statistics are reviewed on a quarterly basis to measure changes and to evaluate possible trends.

Nationally, the number of different languages needed for hospital patients rose six percent to 126 languages. The top five are Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese. Chinese replaced Polish, number five last year.

"Across the nation as a whole, we see the growth in America's diversity," said CyraCom CEO Michael D. Greenbaum. "Our information shows the increase in Asian languages and dialects in particular, though this varies in different parts of the country.

"What this means is that our hospitals must be prepared for more and more diversity to be able to provide quality patient care and deal with public safety issues."

He noted that more hospitals have added interpreters to their staffs but the growing number of languages needed make around the clock availability in so many languages impossible to meet with on-site staff.

More than six million immigrants have come to the United States since 2000 according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

CyraCom provides telephonic interpretation in more than 150 languages 24 hours a day. It also provides other language services such as document translation and interpreter testing and training. In 2004 the company won an award from InfoWorld magazine for its health care technology. Inc. magazine named it to its 2004 list of 500 fastest-growing private companies in the United States.

For more information, call 770-645-4545 or go to www.cyracom.com