Workforce Language Services

When I was teaching English as a Second Language to low-income mothers in a family literacy program, I’d often become horrified as the mothers shared with me stories of frustration and miscommunication during their visits to the local health care clinic.  Often there’d be no one to explain in Spanish during doctor’s visits and on the occasions that there were, the clinic would simply grab a bilingual person to help out since there were very few certified interpreters on staff.

 The Rush-Copley Medical Center in Aurora, Illinois is making sure that these situations never occur in their facility:

“We are going to celebrate the [interpretation] program’s 30th anniversary this June,” says Diane Moreau, BA, BS, director of patient support services and a Spanish interpreter. “We have eight full-time interpreters who are able to cover all shifts in the operation of the hospital.”

Moreau’s interpreters see 75 to 80 patients a day, and they spend 30 minutes on average with each patient; however, sessions easily can be two or three hours long.

“The area where the most help is needed is triage and the ER,” she says. “Clear communication is very important, especially if the patient is in pain. The faster we gather information on the patients’ conditions, the faster we can give them the care they need.”

The other area where interpreters are in high need is during patient discharge.

“Discharging a patient can easily take an hour and a half, and the interpreters are present to make sure patients understand every detail about their condition and what they need to do after leaving the hospital,” says Moreau. “It’s much better to have the interpreter in the room because teaching or demonstrating something over the phone is very difficult. We can’t ignore the importance of nonverbal communication, either.”

The Nurse.com article also brings up the point that Latinos are underrepresented in the medical field, thus increasing the difficulty of providing cultural competent medical care in a patient’s native language.  One tactic would be to recruit bilingual Latinos into the medical field so that patients could speak directly to the care provider in Spanish rather than rely on a third-party, albeit highly qualified, interpreter.

Tacoma, Washington just hired the city’s first Hispanic community liaison, a move that many said was overdue since the Latino population has been increasing.  The new liaison was introduced at a community forum:

Sabin said people of Hispanic descent who are new to the area – including immigrants from Mexico, Central America and South America – may feel isolated. She wants to incorporate them into the larger Federal Way community. The city invited members of the Hispanic community to a luncheon at City Hall Wednesday to introduce Sabin. The response exceeded the city’s expectations with more than 100 people turning out.

One purpose of the gathering was to ask people how Sabin can serve them.

Interestingly enough, a Latino community member and advocate objected to the choice of liaison since she is white and not Latino.  He commented that she will face a struggle to understand Latino culture so as to be able to do her job well.  His comment is, in a way, extremely short-sighted and doesn’t address the fact that Hispanic culture is diverse.  Many recent immigrants from Latino countries themselves find it necessary to adjust to different cultural aspects and attitudes of those who hail from other Spanish-speaking countries. 

As a bilingual Caucasian, I have also faced the same resistence from members of the Hispanic community that the new liaison will face.  But I have found that through relationship building and communication, these barriers can be overcome and trust can be established with time. 

To read more details, click here. 

A recent article in an Iowa newspaper details the art and difficulties behind providing interpretation services for the courts. 

The journalist interviewed federal court interpreters during breaks in the proceedings against almost 400 Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants who were detained in a raid:

Translators are “performance artists,” Xavier Keogh of St. Petersburg, Fla., said.

“We are artists. We play the role of everyone, the judge, defendant and the attorneys,” he said, grinning with his arms open, giving a virtual thespian bow. “We wear all these hats and everyone has a different perspective.”

The article reiterates the fact that interpreters are not simply bilingual, but are highly trained professionals:

Lilley said a translator must know many things in order to do an accurate and fair job. Many times a judge phrases something that doesn’t come out right or make sense in Spanish. The translator must then be able to put the verb in another place or use another word, without changing the meaning, to make it comprehensible for the defendant.

The golden rule is to never change the meaning of what the judge, attorney or defendant says, all the translators agreed. They also agreed they don’t favor the court or defendant. They are the neutral party that ensures nobody is “lost in translation.”

Another recent article from a Wisconsin newspaper homed in on the importance of qualified, court-certified interpreters: a defendant can appeal a decision made by the courts if he didn’t understand what was going on in court.  By using state certified interpreters in Wisconsin, it’s less likely that an appellate court would overturn a decision. 

The Wisconsin article also explained the state’s certification process and listed the costs of having interpreters on staff.

To read the complete article, click here.