Hispanic patients

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The unit I work in deals with a lot of non-english speaking patients and their families, mainly hispanic (just so you know, they are my very favorite patients...I could work in a hospital with only hispanic laboring women all day long.) Our hospital employs translators to help with these patients and one of them brought up an interesting point the other day that I am trying to find a way to deal with. I was working in our triage department and had a young hispanic patient who miscarried her 8 week fetus while I was trying to get information. It was all very sad and confusing (for her). After I had done our customary discharge paperwork, I asked the translator to let her know the particulars, especially since she would need to take her methergine on schedule. The translator asked later if we could do the discharge instructions in spanish. I let her know that we did not have the tools to perform that, but have thought of it continuously since then. I discussed the issue with one the RNs who manages our computer charting and have even worked in Microsoft Word to translate the document myself. The only problem with that is that some is write in (i.e., discharge diagnosis, allergies, etc) and there are too many to have them available for a nurse to write on or type into the document.

Any one have any thing they can share from their experience with this? Anything will help. Most of these women in our area don't seek medical care during their pregnancy and I think this is a big reason why.

Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

Folks in Paraguay and some parts of Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia speak Guaraní as their first language and then learn Spanish when they get to school.

There are hundreds of different native languages in Mexico and I'm sure other Latin American countries.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho.

Ok i have a site that i use at work to translate instructions in any language i need. We have used it for Spainish, French/south African, and Polish. Let me see if i can think of it.

OH,, babblefish, try this site, im pretty sure it works. All you have to do is type instructions into the box, pick the language you want it translated to and click. You can then print it out in the language you need it printed in. We use it for our patients frequently and it helps tremendously even for instructions while in the hospital if a translator isnt available and you have to relay information to your patient.

http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/babelfish/tr

Although this is a good translation site it does NOT take the place of a translator in person, we do also use language lines occasionally.

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I have to agree with a previous poster (Crocuta, I think) do not use programs, plain ol' online translation sites, dictionaries, or microsoft word, etc to translate. The majority of the time the translation comes out completely wrong, mostly do to the fact that the computer does not know what context you are speaking in. Also, many, many things do not directly translate word for word. As others have mentioned there are companies that will do this for you. We have a large enough SSO population that we have all of our forms in both languages. I translated some consents and other forms before for an anesthesia group, and I know there was some legal implications involved, don't quite remember how we worked that out. SG

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

We have things in our hospital translated by the "official" hospital translators that don't make sense to me, so I can imagine what computer programs would do!!! (I'm bilingual)

The whole context thing aside, there are some words that mean one thing in one country that may mean something completely different (or mean nothing at all) in another. That can be tricky to overcome.

Example: in Argentina bizcocho means "biscuit"; in Puerto Rico it means "cake"; in Mexico it is a vulgar word for "lady parts."

An OB example: I've had Central Americans ask me about using a teta. In Mexico that means the nipple of a bottle or sometimes a breast nipple. What they were talking about was pacifiers.

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Specializes in L & D and Mother-Baby.

I also work in CA and our patients are probably 60-70% Spanish speaking only. All of our forms are available in English and Spanish. I am bilingual as well and am more than happy to go over discharge instructions in Spanish with any patient (time permitting of course). Do you have bilingual staff RNs on your unit? We are only allowed to have a certified translator or a bilingual licensed personnel give discharge instructions. I guess there were problems with using techs and housekeeping staff to translate. Sometimes the information wasn't being given correctly and the RN didn't know if she didn't understand what was being said in Spanish. I know I may be rambling but it seems that the written instructions are important but it's great if someone can verbally confirm that the patient understands the instructions!

Buena Suerte (Good Luck!);)

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I got a spanish ob packet of basics with cd from http://www.birthwithsol.com

but i'd be interested in your book too, which one???

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Our hospital has pre-printed discharge instructions in both English and Spanish. They are formated alike so we can fill in the blanks correctly even if we don't know Spanish. (ie. D/C weight, doc's phone #, etc.)

Personally, I think we are enabling folks to avoid learning the language, but legally we have to be able to give them instructions.

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Our hospital has pre-printed discharge instructions in both English and Spanish. They are formated alike so we can fill in the blanks correctly even if we don't know Spanish. (ie. D/C weight, doc's phone #, etc.)

Personally, I think we are enabling folks to avoid learning the language, but legally we have to be able to give them instructions.

It takes a lot of time and immersion to learn a language. Unfortunately, people can't decide to wait until after they've gotten a good handle on English to need medical treatment. Also, wouldn't you want to understand what was going on if you were visiting a foreign country and needed care?

I'm saying this from a standpoint of having a Spanish-speaking husband. There is always something that is difficult to communicate to each other, even after a couple years! Throw in a medical emergency and unfamiliar terminology and that's it.

I agree that learning English should be a priority for those who wish to lead successful lives in the United States, but have some empathy. You only do it because "legally" you have to. . . I swear.

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Specializes in OB/Neonatal, Med/Surg, Instructor.

One of the issues we have run into in our rural area is that our patients typically have only a couple years of education and are not able to read any language. Most of the ones in our area are speaking one of the 180+ regional dialects that the translator phone operators can't decipher so we have had to depend on picture boards and VERY basic Spanish, some good local translators who translate English to Spanish to the partner or family member who then translates Spanish to dialect to the patient. Not very efficient and certainly problematic, but right now it is the best we can do to deal with our non-English speaking Hispanic OB patients.

I tried the web link and it didn't work, any one else know of a good source?:nurse:

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An OB example: I've had Central Americans ask me about using a teta. In Mexico that means the nipple of a bottle or sometimes a breast nipple. What they were talking about was pacifiers.

OT but when my first child was born I was breastfeeding her at a work picnic and was just finishing and putting a pacifier in her mouth when my boss's (Puerto Rican) husband walked by and commented "Ah, there's nothing like the old Ta-ta is there?" I had only heard the word ta-ta used to describe breasts at that point so I was a little taken aback but thought he must be a big breastfeeding supporter. I learned later he was talking about the pacifier :)

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Specializes in OB.

Too funny CEG!

We were just having a conversation at work the other night between some Hispanic and "Anglo" staff about words in Spanish which have more than one meaning - working in OB you can imagine where that conversation went. One of the girls went home and asked her (Hispanic) husband about some of the words and just about made him spew his morning coffee when she said she was going to ask her mother-in-law about some of them!

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It takes a lot of time and immersion to learn a language. Unfortunately, people can't decide to wait until after they've gotten a good handle on English to need medical treatment. Also, wouldn't you want to understand what was going on if you were visiting a foreign country and needed care?

I'm saying this from a standpoint of having a Spanish-speaking husband. There is always something that is difficult to communicate to each other, even after a couple years! Throw in a medical emergency and unfamiliar terminology and that's it.

I agree that learning English should be a priority for those who wish to lead successful lives in the United States, but have some empathy. You only do it because "legally" you have to. . . I swear.

If these patients were simply visiting on vacation, we would not have this attitude. Many of the Spanish-only patients I see here in Houston are crossing the border to have their babies here so that they will have the birthright of citizenship and be eligible for government assitance, etc. The mothers are typically here illegally.

Some have been here a while but have not bothered to learn the language - heck, why?! We cater to them with bilingual this and that. I went to a award ceremony at my daughter's elementary school once. There was a translator repeating everything the speaker said in Spanish. Hellooooo - this is AMERICA. I'm tired of my tax dollars being abused.

There are deeper issues here than a language barrier.

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