Culture And Language Barrier Is Preventing People From Obtaining The Health Care Essay

The increasing population of immigrants in the United States has contributed to health disparities in the health care system. Cultural competence can remove health disparities by eliminating personal biases, and treating every person with respect. Simply recognizing and accepting different cultures is not enough, one must be able to consistently recognize and understand the differences in order to be culturally competent. Knowledge and culturally competent practices are a must for nurses to deliver quality care in our rapidly changing multicultural world (Edelman, 2014 p. 25).

“Americans can take come pride in the fact that attaining what the medical profession calls “cultural competency” is a goal of most health care institutions. However, achieving this goal in today’s health care environment, filled with diverse patient and provider populations, is no easy task. American hospitals are increasingly being staffed by and serving diverse populations. This creates the ideal breeding ground for conflict and misunderstanding among the staff and inferior patient care” (Galanti, 2011). To gain a more thorough understanding of this concept, I will be giving four examples or viewpoints that are completely different, when looking at the Hispanic belief against the Native American point of view.

It is well known that the United States is made up of several different cultures and the health care system delivers care to a very diverse population. However, depending on ones culture-receiving care may be a challenge at times. In this paper we are going to take a closer look at the culture of Hispanic Americans. The Hispanic population has grown to over 55 million residents with in the United States in 2015, with an estimated growth rate of 2.1% per year (Krogstad & Lopez, 2015). Making this minority group on of the fastest growing populations within the United States (DeNisco & Barker, 2016).

With the increasing immigrant population a third barrier affecting access to health care is a cultural barrier. Culture barriers can include values and beliefs, language and race and ethnicity. Health beliefs and behavior can become a barrier when patients decide not to seek medical treatment and instead turn to home remedies and healers when treating illnesses. Approximately 10% of Americans speak a language other than English and can be classified ad being limited in their proficiency. For these patients language becomes a barrier and they are less likely to receive optimal medical treatment (Flores, 2006). Horton and Johnson (2010) stress the importance of communication in reducing disparities and increasing the trust of patients in the health care system. As reported by the American College of Physicians, evidence reveals that racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to receive inferior care when compared with non-minorities. This occurs even when minorities have access to insurance and adequate income (Racial and ethnic disparities in health care, 2010).

Critically analyse one of the main challenges, barriers, and enablers for cultural competence in health care when working in a cross-cultural environment.

Gloria Anzaldua’s article “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” focuses on the discrimination against Latin American individuals, who are residents or citizens, of the United States. Gloria Anzaldua empathizes the bullying in schools and in her daily life. Despite all the bullying and discrimination she had to put up with, Gloria stands up for herself and fights for her culture and origins. She chooses to love herself for who she is, which allowed her to put those ugly comments and actions aside to grow into the person she is today. Amy Tan’s article “Mother Tongue,” also focuses on the discrimination against her efforts to speak and write English. Amy Tan emphasizes the topics of standardized testing and discrimination within schools that go

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman, is the story of two very different cultures lacking understanding for one another leading to a tragedy due to cultural incompetence. Today in America there are very many different cultures. Health care providers need to be aware of cultural diversity and sensitivity when caring for patients. If a health care provider is not sensitive towards a patient’s culture it can cause a relationship of mistrust to form, lead to barriers in the plan of care, and increase health care cost. The current guidelines to promote cultural competence in the clinical setting include completing a cultural diversity self-assessment, identify the need of the population served, evaluate barriers in the community and practice, educate staff to cultural diversities, schedule longer appointments, clarify limitations, and identify alternatives offered (Cash & Glass, 2014).

In a perfect world, race, ethnicity and culture would have no negative effect on the medical care we receive, yet problems do arise and it affects the quality of care the patient receives. Language barrier, poor socioeconomic status, and poor health literacy also contribute to health care disparity. For Lia, it was more than her skin color, it was all of the above, her parents did not speak English and they were illiterate. They had trouble understanding the American healthcare system, had trouble or little interest in adjusting to or understanding the American culture. They didn’t work, which in addition to cross cultural misunderstanding, helped contribute to animosity between the Hmong and the host community, because some in the Merced area did not like or appreciate the fact that some Hmong did not work and relied on welfare to make ends meet. All these factors, contributed to the poor quality of

In the preparation of writing this paper, I reviewed several educational videos from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (n.d.) that show healthcare providers interacting with patients from different cultures. I chose the video that shows a Hispanic man interacting with his surgeon. I chose this video because all counties in Ohio except one are seeing increases in the Hispanic population. There has been a nine

I believe cultural difference between service providers and immigrant families is a major barrier; therefore, there should be more diversity of staff in government organizations and more opportunities for cultural training of health care providers to deliver more culturally-sensitive health services to immigrant women that are congruent to their own traditional beliefs. This could help to reduce language barriers and prevent further racist treatment for immigrant women. One limitation of this study is the small number of visible-minority immigrants in Halifax.

A vital foundation for a high-quality care delivery is an efficacious communication between the patient and the healthcare providers (Gengler & Jarrell, 2015). Fadiman (1997) recounted the conflict between a refugee family from Laos and a small hospital in California over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong girl with severe epilepsy, in her book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Despite both sides wanting the best care for Lia, the lack of cross-cultural communication between her Hmong family and her American doctors, lead to her tragedy (Fadiman, 1997). Awareness regarding the disparities in culture and language of our patient with ours and how to address them should be taken into account when providing healthcare since the life of a

America is melting pot; there are an enormous variety of cultures and ethnicities represented in our general population. This population diversity is also reflected in healthcare participants. With the diverse amount of backgrounds, there also becomes a need for transcultural health care and acknowledging that not every culture views

There is limited healthcare services and literature that is culturally and linguistically appropriate for culturally diverse populations. These barriers have been shown over the years to threaten how effective care is for these populations. The healthcare system depends on nurses to facilitate services, care plans and educate patients on various health issues.

One of the greatest things about nursing is that we have the opportunity to share with different cultures and learn about them. Our patients are complex; they each have their religion, culture, and life choices. Delivering health advice and not knowing much about a patient’s cultural background will influence how the patient may perceive the nurses’ advice. The article that I did my research on was published in 2011, by Perez-Avila, Sobralske and Katz; the name of the article is “No Comprendo: Practice Considerations When Caring for Latinos With Limited English Proficiency in the United States Health Care System”. In the United States, Hispanics form the largest minority. Most of this community has limited English

Language barriers and lack of knowledge regarding the United States medical system are also problems among the immigrant and refugee population. Because of the language barrier, immigrants and refugees may feel embarrassed or uncomfortable going to the doctor which causes long term issues.