Thread: Emergency in Emergency Rooms

"Interpreter-gate:" The Emergency in America's Emergency Rooms
Alan Tonelson
Thursday, August 03, 2006

Talk about immigration extremists who put the cart before the horse. And about the out-of-control entitlement mentality they are creating. And about the reporters who give them a podium and a pass. All were on display in USA Today reporter Elizabeth Weise’s articles July 20 on the shortage of foreign language interpreters in U.S. hospitals.

It seems that some of America’s medical establishment is upset that any non-English speaker living either legally or illegally in the United States cannot arrive in an American emergency room and expect a staffer or interpreter fluent in Somali or Urdu or, of course, Spanish to be available at the drop of a hat.

As Weise dutifully reports, Milwaukee-based medical school professor Glenn Flores fears that such an interpreter gap is “resulting in higher costs and worse medical care.” Presumably validating these concerns was their publication in the authoritative New England Journal of Medicine. In the process, common sense has taken flight.

Certainly, American emergency rooms face a major emergency. They are legally obligated to provide treatment to any patient regardless of financial wherewithal or legal status. Interpretation services are also supposed to be guaranteed to all Medicaid and Medicare patients. Combine these mandates with Washington’s longstanding Open Borders policies and what else can you expect but emergency rooms overwhelmed by illegal immigrants?

Weise does note that “some have suggested” an obvious solution: “people who come to the USA should simply learn English.” But she only notes this in passing. Ignored as well is the general requirement that legal immigrants speak English. Thus most of the non-English speakers allegedly victimized unfairly by the interpreter gap actually don’t belong in the United States to begin with and arguably have no right to any taxpayer-financed public services. Therefore, left out altogether is the most obvious solution to this so-called crisis: turning off the illegal immigration magnet of automatic and limitless government benefits, and improving health care quality by reducing the illegal population and thus slashing emergency room patient loads.

Spotlighted instead are the views of Wilma Alvarado-Little, representing the (what else?) National Council on Interpreting in Health Care: Learning English is not the answer because even foreign-born English speakers “may need help in an emergency room because they’re too worried and lack the vocabulary.” It’s hard to tell which logical implication of this argument is sillier: that native speakers never get flustered in such difficult situations? Or that everyone currently living in the United States deserves protection against stress itself?

http://www.americaneconomicalert.com/vi ... od_ID=2527


Sources: “Demand surges for translators are medical facilities,” and “Language barriers plague hospitals,” by Elizabeth Weise, USA Today, July 20, 2006

This lack of having a translator to speak in your behalf if you don't speak English should not be passed on to the American tax payer. What happened to self-responsibility, and self-accountability, in our country? I would think if I were in another country and had an emeregency medical condition it would be up to me or my family to have someone to speak on my behalf! I am so dam sick of our government thinking that we should accomodate the whole frigging world esp since they are in our country illegaly by having someone to speak in their behalf at every frigging emergency room in America! We already have a nursing shortage, a doctor shortage, it is only going to get 10 times worse because soon nurses and doctors are going to refuse to work in our frigging emergency rooms trying to understand just what the hell is going on with some one who cannot make themselves understood to the medical staff, then to top it all they will sue the medical staff if a mistake was made because the staff could not understand what the person was trying to say to them.

Of course, sue, sue sue and sue some more!