posted on Jul, 26 2006 @ 03:20 PM
TO be honest not as far as I can see. No I will preface this observation with the fact that I work at a childrens hospital so the resources tend to a
be a bit better. As a transport nurse we frequently run into this barrier. Spanish is the most common we run into in California, But we combat that in
a variety of ways:
1) We have concents, maps and the like in Spanish
2) The hospitals have 24 hour coverage of a variety of language translators.
3) ATT has a 24/7 language translation service we call up and use.
4) In an emergency yes, we can and have used a family member but only after the other 3 did not cut it.
The worst language barrier occured when i was a new nurse working in Fresno. We had a family that was deaf, and only spoke Hmong sign language (Sing
language is not universal but changes from country to country), One person in the area spoke Hmong and Chinese sign language, se he would convert the
Hmong sign language into Chinese sign language, and the last part of the chain was a man who spoke English but could read Chinese sign language.
Distcharge teaching was a involved process with the message going from me all the way down the chain and question all the way back up to me. The child
had a complex heart defect with lots of medication and the like and you know what the child got the care at home he needed.
The point of that story is to show that it can be done.
Now to play Devils advocate: The other question you should ask is why they do not speak the dominat language? Or, as a health are consumer, would you
rather see say less nurses in the ER to get that translator? THis is a question that hospital that are on the edge of bankrupy have to decide.