Not even a word of English

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This past 2 weeks, the patients i have opened up cases for in HH speak not a work of English. They have social security numbers, Medicare benefits, and Medicaid benefits. Live in the U.S. But do not speak a word of English. Getting a family member who does or a translator at a certain time, or even to make a simple phone call and to get someone to answer the door is an utmost challenge.

I know this topic is controversial, but why am I struggling to hard to understand some Spanish so I can do my job in America?

Most are quite lovely patients. Some are just shocked that I don't speak Spanish!

My rant of the day. And these days, there are a lot of rants for me in this field, I admit it.

I am bilingual in English and Norwegian (which would also make me understood to Swedes and Danes), but let's face it.. I won't encounter many Scandinavians who don't already speak English. I am planning on learning Spanish. First, because I already speak a little bit and would love to be fluent, but secondly because I see the value of it as a future healthcare provider to be able to converse with my patients. Not to mention that the likelihood that I will encounter a patient that is spanish-speaking only is high. I think that for me it's important that I try to be as marketable as a nurse as I can be, not to mention that it reduces the stress for both the nurse and the pt when the communication isn't immediately hampered by language barriers. I do agree that it would be nice if everyone that came to the United States learned how to speak English, but that is just not how things are.

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Specializes in LTC, MDS, EHR, HH, Nursing Management.

Right, Wrong, or Indifferent.............it is what it is. tTe Hispanic healthcare market and for that matter any market is HUGE. Like any other cultural group, they purchase goods and services. Health insurance premiums benifit all of us who rely on the costs of healthcare for our paychecks.

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Specializes in Family Practice, HIV specialist.

I must admit, I've never heard of tagolog. Who speaks it, and what area are you located in?

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Specializes in Neurology/ Adult Psychiatry.

Most of us, if we have impartial interpretation, we set ourselves for errors. We can argue till dawn about the value of learning English, of course it is important, but topic is much broader then that, we must comply with changes that involves larger group of people with limited english proficiency and I'm not speaking about only Spanish speakers. It took epidemic proportions and you will see in near future that medical interpretation as a profession will bloom.

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I must admit, I've never heard of tagolog. Who speaks it, and what area are you located in?

Tagalog is spoken by many Filipinos.

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Specializes in ED, Cardiac-step down, tele, med surg.

My maternal grandparents and great grandparents were from Austria and had to flee to avoid persecution by the Nazis and spoke only or mostly German. They had to learn how to speak English when they came here, but I think my grandmother might have known a little English from school in Austria because I think they required second languages. It was very challenging for my great grandmother and father because they were so old and learning a second language was difficult, but eventually they were able to learn enough to get by. I sometimes find it very challenging to work with people who are non English speaking, because I've always had difficulty with learning languages. I'm mainly frustrated with myself for not knowing another language. I think I would have had a easier time learning it in elementary school versus later on. I think it would be a good idea to have some kind of basic medical language book, where you know certain words or phrases in different languages so that it would make it easier to communicate. But learning a different language is pretty amazing because it opens up a whole new world, I hope I have the ability to at least learn Spanish in the near future.

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California has a history of Spanish influence that continues to this day. My great grandmother moved to California in her 20s and never spoke English but understood it. All her friends spoke Spanish and she lived within a large Spanish speaking community. One of her sons (my great uncle) also never spoke English and he was born in the same community in California as well.

My step-father's mother was born in California, in a small farming town (and I mean small). She never learned english although she understood a great deal but again, the town was primarily hispanic, many of the older people didn't speak english even if they were born there.

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Specializes in Home Care.

I wish I was multi-lingual, I'd love to be fluent in Spanish, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Russian and Arabic. My city is multi-national and I'm proud of it.

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Specializes in Gerontology.

I have always been on the edge of the RN/BSN debate but this post pushes me solidly into the required BSN camp. The multiple-year foreign language requirement not only enables you to communicate with patients who don't speak English fluently, it also increases your compassion for people who don't speak your language because can't help but appreciate the difficulty involved in learning another language.

To the OP - your post makes me sick. Let us hope you never fall ill in a foreign country. Though, it's highly unlikely that would occur because it's highly unlikely that you have a passport. God help you and your patients.

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To the OP - your post makes me sick. Let us hope you never fall ill in a foreign country. Though, it's highly unlikely that would occur because it's highly unlikely that you have a passport. God help you and your patients.
We're not talking about people on vacation or even people who moved to the US recently. The OP was referring to people who've obviously been in the US a long time and refuse to learn at least enough English to get by. It IS a legitimate complaint.
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Specializes in Peds Medical Floor.

I've done some traveling. I try to know a few key phrases in the language of the country I'm going to. In Italy my friend and I were talking to each other (in English) and a guy came up to us and asked if he could practice his English with us. That was a fun conversation! He taught us some Italian and we taught him some English. Everywhere, people would hear us speaking English to each other and try to teach us some Italian. I met a guy who worked at a train station who was fluent in Italian, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese! In Costa Rica, I spoke as much Spanish as I could remember from high school. After a while, it started coming back to me. People were very eager to teach my friend (who never took Spanish) and me Spanish. My friend could order dinner and her coffee in Spanish after 12 days lol. She also knew how to ask for directions and how to understand very basic directions and follow them. Could you imagine Americans trying to teach someone who refused to learn English after 40 years? People would get mad. It's silly. In the countries I've been to, people took us at least trying to speak their language as a sign of respect. Some people told me they thought it was disrespectful that people would come to their country and would expect everyone to speak English to them (although almost everyone did!). Why wouldn't we want the same respect shown?

I knew a couple with children who moved to France for the husband's job. I was friendly with the mom. She learned French by going to the market and trying to converse with people. They all also learned from TV and movies. That's how you learn another language if you can't afford the classes.

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Also, your assertion that all RN BSNs are multilingual is laughable.

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