Patients Protest At UCSD Medical Center

A protest was recently held outside of the UCSD Medical Center because of alleged poor translation/interpretation services.  The rally took place because more and more patients are coming forward with their own unique stories about receiving poor language services or none at all.

Mohamed Mohamed, a senior at San Diego High School, missed school days and his high school's exit exam because he was required to translate for his father's medical appointments.  The hospital's major language category gaffs seem to center in either Swahili or Somali.

The protest is just a part of the statewide effort to improve interpretation/translation in medical settings.  The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Interpreting for California and nonprofit Mid-City CAN’s Access to Healthcare group have "been collecting stories from East African, Burmese, Latino and Chinese patients who say poor communication with doctors has but them at risk."

The UCSD Medical Center is being accused by the coalition of protesters of using interpreters under the age of 18 which is illegal.

Aaron Byzak, spokesman of UC San Diego, said, "The hospital has five Spanish-language interpreters, a 24-hour phone service that offers interpretation in 200 languages and a teleconferencing program in 150 languages."

This is certainly an issue that must be addressed because one in five patients will be non-native English speakers once the Affordable Care Act is initiated.  And of course, all of this could have been avoided with the use of a reputable translation/interpretation company such as World Services.

It is crucially important that interpreters are certified to handle medical terms because if they are not, information relayed from the medical professional to the patient may be misleading.  This opens the door to all kinds of liability issues.

To read the original story about the protest, visit here.