Workforce Language Services

While immigrants with limited English skills are increasingly able to access medical care in their native language, this trend has not carried over into the pharmacies where they fill their prescriptions.  A Gotham Gazette article about this issue quotes a report by the New York Academy of Medicine in which they found that two thirds of pharmacies in the NYC area do not provide translations of prescription instructions despite the fact that 88 percent of city pharmacies serve limited English speakers. 

Obviously this could prove disastrous or even fatal for limited English speakers who either take their medicine incorrectly or don’t take it out of fear that they’ve misunderstood the directions.  Health care advocates working with city council members are currently working on legislation that would require translation services:

“Giving New Yorkers access to the information they need starts with simple, common sense steps, like providing translation services and extra medical instruction for those with limited English proficiency who are filling prescriptions,” said Gotbaum in a prepared statement. “Our proposed legislation will help break down the barriers many currently face when seeking health care and ensure that no New Yorker is left guessing when it comes to questions about their medication.”

Concerns from the pharmacies about implementing such legislation include worries about lack of pharmacists in general, much less multilingual ones, the dangers of providing incorrect translations, and the inability to serve all customers in neighborhoods with more than one dominant language. 

A 2006 article from the New York Times detailed the findings of researchers who surveyed the practices of pharmacies in the Bronx.  While their research was limited to that particular borough,  those conducting the study suggested that this problem is most likely not limited to this corner of the country, a suggestion that is further backed up by the more recent article.