Language a Widening Barrier to Health Care
Many U.S. residents don't speak English, limiting dialogue with doctors, report says.
WEDNESDAY, July 19 (HealthDay News) -- One of the biggest barriers to high-quality health care for millions of U.S. residents has nothing to do with medicine. (or money. Anyone from anywhere can walk into any U.S. emergency room and by law cannot be refused treatment. LB 1901)
It has to do with language.
"We're looking at 50 million people in the U.S., 19 percent of the population, who speak a language other than English at home and 22 million who have limited English proficiency, so that's a lot of people," said Dr. Glenn Flores, director of the Center for the Advancement of Underserved Children, and a professor of pediatrics, epidemiology and health policy at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
And the number is growing, added Flores, who is author of a perspective article in the July 20 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that outlines the issues and possible solutions.
Between 1990 and 2000, the number of Americans speaking a language other than English at home grew by 15.1 million (a 47 percent increase) and the number with limited English proficiency grew by 7.3 million (a 53 percent increase).
Patients who face language barriers have difficulty accessing care, receive fewer preventive services, and are less likely to follow medication directions. For example, asthmatic children with language barriers are more likely to end up intubated in intensive care.
"Patients who do not have the opportunity to have a culturally and linguistically competent physician often don't get as good care," confirmed Dr. Robert Schwartz, chairman of family medicine and community health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "It's a critical issue to be able to speak to a patient."
Schwartz's department serves a predominantly Hispanic part of Miami. And in Miami, according to the journal article, 75 percent of residents speak a language other than English at home.
Examples cited by Flores range from the near-comic to the tragic.
There was, for instance, the interpreter who mistranslated a nurse practitioner's instructions and told a mother to put oral antibiotics into her 7-year-old daughter's ear. continued
This pandering to the 'la raza' crowd is a real killer.