The Realm Of Medicine Is A Very Broad And All Encompassing Field

Can you imagine the how the healthcare industry would be without language, what seems to be impossible to imagine is the everyday reality of some patients because of their native language. Language is a major contribution to the health disparities that some populations face, because it makes it difficult for some patients to communicate their problems as well as understand the care they provided. Language contributes to the health disparities that some populations face because it creates a barrier between the patient and the care provider, making it difficult for a patient to receive proper care. Language barriers create a communication gap between a patient and a provider, forcing the patient to feel misunderstood and unable to trust his/her provider to properly care for them. I come from a family that speaks more than one language, so I have seen the impact language barriers can have on someone who doesn’t speak fluent English.

In 2004 my grandmother and I moved from Haiti to United States without a speck of English in our language. After few years living in the states, my grandma started to get ill and she had to seek monthly medical assistance. At the time, my mother was working multiple jobs and I was a full time undergrad student that lived on college campus. Our busy schedule posed a challenge for us to bring grandma to her medical appointments. Most times it was hard for us to find someone to go with her and assist her with language translation. When it was time for her to go by herself, the health providers would have trouble finding a professional translator on the spot to assist my grandma. This became a repetitive problem and my grandma’s case was not getting any better. If she had the ability to communicate with her provider using her own language, she would have been able to be more expressive about her symptoms and the doctors would have assisted her to her needs. Just like my grandma, many people that speaks little to no English, are having trouble interpreting their medical diagnosis and communicating with their healthcare providers.

In the state of Massachusetts the state law states that the emergency department patients with limited English proficiency have the right to a medical interpreter (Ginde, Clark, & Camargo, 2009). Having a medical interpreter for patients that have limited English proficiency will increase the quality of health care they receive; it also increases patient compliance and increases patient satisfaction. The use of professional interpreters is shown to decrease revisiting the emergency department, and increase this population’s use of outpatient clinics for follow up care (Ginde et al., 2009).

Non-English speaking citizens and immigrants are receiving improper medical care because of the miscommunication. The people who cannot speak English well are misunderstood, when they go to free clinics or hospital emergency rooms and attempt to explain their symptoms and illness or cannot understand the doctors or medical profession that are trying to help them. ” Interpreters are omitting questions about drug allergies. Patients are not telling nurses the correct symptoms. A mother misunderstood by putting oral antibiotic into the ears of the child instead of the mouth. The Puerto Rican word for mumps is not the same in Central America, so a child was mistreated. A doctor mistakenly told a parent to put a steroid crème on entire child instead of just the face” (Yolanda Prtida, 2005). Language barriers in the medical field are dangerous and some times even fatal. There is definitely a need for more translators in hospitals and doctors office. Clear communication is essential for safe quality healthcare. Poor communication can lead to disastrous outcomes, especially for patients with limited or no English ability.

Language is one social and cultural barriers that may have made it difficult for the doctors to communicate with Jessica’s family. It creates the trust that exists between a patient and a doctor and their guardians. When using a translator, meanings may change and the desired communication result may not be achieved. The trust that should exist between the doctor and the patient and the guardians

The case of ethical dilemma concerns a fifty-year old woman who was admitted in the hospital complaining of vomiting, indigestion and weight loss signs and symptoms. After conducting barium X-Ray and gastroscopy it was found out by doctors that the patient was suffering from malignant kind of gastric carcinoma and hence further diagnosis and treatment will have to be conducted in relation to the disease the patient was suffering from. Doctors suggested a palliative surgery for reducing stenosis but felt it before time to disclose this information to the patient which was cemented after proper consultation with the patient’s husband who said that her wife would overreact in a situation like this as she had a phobia regarding tumors and cancer diseases.

The language barrier is a glaring problem for Hispanics in terms of accessing health care coverage for several reasons. Hispanics have far fewer Spanish speaking support systems to navigate them through the complex system that will provide them access to health care. In addition, demographically speaking, it is going to be harder for the Hispanic population to access a provider that is fluent in their language. While interpreters are sometimes available for the Spanish speaking population, they may be reluctant to use them. Primarily they may be worried that the translation will not be accurately reported to the health care provider as they don’t know what is being said in the English portion of the translation. Another possible barrier to translation is that perhaps the individual has a medical issue they do not want shared with a stranger who is not the medical provider specifically (Maxwell et al., 2011). Therefore, these issues could possibly create more barriers to quality care. Although the Affordable Care Act has increased health care coverage for low-income, uninsured Hispanics with the expansions of Medicaid, as a result of the Supreme Court ruling, this remains to be a state option. Studies show an estimated 95% of uninsured Latinos would qualify for Medicaid

(2013) discussed the issue of lack of english skills being a primary barrier for patients receiving adequate health care. The article also mentions how studies have shown that Spanish speaking Latinos are less satisfied with the health care that they received in determine whether comparison to their English speaking counterparts. The purpose of the study was to Spanish speaking Latinos have an increased quality of care when provided with an interpreter during their visit. The population for the study was 30 patients in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, whose primary language was spanish. The intervention implied that the use of interpreters will improve the quality of healthcare received by non english speaking patients. The comparison aimed at urging providers to make an effort to provide legally appropriate care to patients who are unable to speak english. The outcome of the study was that miscommunication between healthcare workers can end up causing medical mistakes and liabilities. It was found that when facilities provided patients with interpreter services, the patient perception of quality care was

(1997). The spirit catches you and you fall down: A Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Karliner, L. S., Jacobs, E. A., Chen, A. H., & Mutha, S. (2007). Do professional interpreters improve clinical care for patients with limited english proficiency?

2. Language: Language can have a significant impact on multiple aspects of the health care of Hispanic children, including access, health status, use of services, and outcomes. The lack of Spanish speaking health care staff and inadequate interpreter services are the principle problems associated with language barriers. Research has shown that medical interpreters are not called when needed, inadequately trained, or not available at all (Flores, Afflick & Barbot, 2002).

Effective communication with patients is critical to the safety and quality care. From the last two decades ,number of researches has been conducted on the impact of language barrier on health and healthcare. It is observed that language barriers are the main cause of medical errors, complication and adverse event. But due to data limitations ,limited researches on impacts of language barrier has been conducted in Canadian setting. However, the researches conducted on other countries on the impact of language barrier on quality of care is applicable in the Canadian context. Some researches shows that there are several barrier which affect quality of care and patient safety. Now, researches has begun to know the complexity of language, culture, race, health literacy that may affect patient care. Current approaches are moved towards the knowledge of risk of language barrier rather than implementation of effective, evidence informed strategies.

Consequently, the need for qualified interpreters in the clinical settings is of great essence in the reduction of

Jacobs, E. A., Shepard, D. S., Suaya, J. A., Stone, E. (2004). Overcoming language barriers in health care: costs and benefits of interpreter services. American Journal of Public Health, 94 (5), 866-869.

The staff person did not take the correct approach in trying to communicate with the patient. The staff person should have made an effort to obtain a trained interpreter to speak with the patient. If unable to do this, the staff person could have sought to find a staff member who spoke Spanish. However, after touching basis on what the patient is seeking care for, a trained interpreter should be obtained. It is not appropriate to use family members as interpreters since this can result in a breach of confidentiality and misunderstanding of information. The patient son is also a minor, which is another reason he should not be used as an interpreter. This situation was not an emergency that required immediate need of a translator, thus an appropriate interpreter would have been the best approach.

During the study, Davidson said that the scarcity of time become the factor of the patient in medical interview. It is because the patients who used interpreter often were left alone for sometimes an hour while they waited for the interpreter to arrive (Baker, 2010 p.160). Moreover, Davidson said that the interpreters are possibly conducted the interview with the patient before the physician arrived (Baker, 2010 p.160). They took a charge of physician’s position by asking questions the patient about the illness before they convey it to the physician. This affects the process of elaborating a Chief Complaint from patient which becomes shorter. Besides, the interpreters also would occasionally go so far as to conduct the initial portions of the interviews itself. According to Davidson in Baker (2010, p.164) the interferences of interpreter in medical interview create harms for the physician. For instance, in