How many non-native english speaking parents

fergus51 · Feb 12, 2006

I'd say at least 1/3 of our patients have something other than english as their primary language, if not more. I live in Southern California, so spanish is the biggie but we also see families who speak Laotian, Cambodian, Chinese, Punjabi... the list goes on.

When I worked in Toronto, I would say the numbers were even higher with a much more diverse language group too. There were a few times that I had never even known a language existed until I met a family at work who listed it as their primary language (Urdu for example).

TiffyRN, BSN, PhD · Feb 13, 2006

I would say something like 1/4 to 1/3 of the parents are non-native English speakers. It's not that common that they can't speak English at all. We have a large Hispanic population in Texas but we see many other nationalities.

Our hospital recently expanded their Spanish translation services a whole lot. Of course it's not uncommon in this area to have translators on during the day but for the first time we have them on nights for a few hours. Most nights we have them until at least 9pm, sometimes until 11pm. I have used them many times and they are really great.

Our unit has an average census of about 50-55 and I would say that at any given time there are 2-3 sets of parents that do not speak English well. Ironically enough in this area with such a large Spanish-speaking population we have very few Spanish-speaking nurses or other personnel.

prmenrs, RN · Feb 13, 2006

@ my current job, I'd say 80% or greater. My old one, probably 60%. Of those 95% speak Spanish, about 1/2 of those have some English skills. I'm happy if it's just Spanish--when it gets into Chinese, etc., it's so much more difficult--we're more familiar w/that culture and, of course, it's a little easier to communicate as we're more likely to speak @ least a little Spanish (Spanglish?).