When Miriam Pena’s mom got sick, it became an extra burden for the young girl – who had to serve as interpreter for her mother, who spoke little English.
“My mom would tell me if I wasn’t able to miss school to go to the doctor’s with her, she’d wait for hours,” Pena said.
That experience is one reason Pena now works with the Colorado Progressive Coalition to help people who may have trouble getting care because they aren’t fluent in English.
In Colorado, the number of people who said they don’t speak English at home grew to 604,000, or 15 percent of the population, in 2000, from 320,000 in 1990.
Eventually, most of them will need health care, and under federal civil rights laws, they shouldn’t be denied because of language barriers.
A survey by the coalition found local hospitals “are doing the best they can to provide services, but the lack of qualified interpreters continues to be a big problem,” said Francoise Mbabazi, the coalition’s health-care coordinator.
A separate coalition survey of 500 low-income immigrants found people being transferred many times when they called for doctors’ appointments.
“Others were told ‘we don’t have interpreters’ or they should bring their own,” Mbabazi said.
“Many times, doctors would grab janitors to interpret, which happens to be a big problem because of confidentiality issues,” Mbabazi said.
Patients can be reluctant to pour out details of their ailments to non-medical employees. Those employees may also not be qualified to interpret medical conditions, Mbabazi said.
Pat Chávez, who has worked at Kaiser Permanente for 34 years, said, “Spanish was my first language, but in my family, we didn’t talk about breast lumps or Pap smears.”
While working at a Chicago hospital, Louis Hampers, now emergency department medical director at The Children’s Hospital in Denver, found that not providing interpreters could actually cost hospitals money.
In 1997, Hampers and colleagues studied the care given patients who were not proficient English speakers.
They found those patients were admitted to the hospital more often and received more IV fluids and unnecessary tests than patients who had no language barrier.
“Those results surprised us,” Hampers said. “It seems there may be a hidden cost to language barriers.”
Without designated interpreters, health-care providers say, children – who often are learning English at school – often get called on to translate.
“That is something that we often talk about, that we should not be using children,” Chávez said.
Across the state, hospitals and doctors’ offices are trying a variety of ways to help patients who don’t speak English.
At Denver Health, which treats many of the city’s poor and immigrants, there is an internal phone line to interpret for Spanish-speaking patients, and the hospital has a Russian-speaking interpreter on staff as well, said Linda Lenander, director of clinical social work.
Denver Health spends about $1 million a year trying to meet patient’s language needs, Lenander said.
One of the most common solutions for hospitals and doctors offices is dial-up interpreter service.
The largest of these companies is Language Line, with about 10,000 regular clients, mostly health-care providers, according to Dale Hansman, spokesman for the California-based company.
“Call us for a Spanish interpreter, we can get a Spanish interpreter on the line sometimes in two seconds,” Hansman said.
At Children’s Hospital, Hampers is studying whether over-the-phone or in-person interpreters are most effective in conveying medical information.
Kaiser Permanente has developed system-wide programs to help patients who don’t speak English, Chávez said.
Last year, the heath-care giant opened a Language Resource Center in Colorado. Chávez is its supervisor.
When patients call for an appointment, they are transferred to a line where an operator speaks Spanish – or whatever language is needed.
When patients come for treatment, Kaiser also uses a call-in interpretation service, Chávez said.
Staff writer Karen Augé can be reached at 303-820-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com.
