I had a 78 year old woman patient, bunch of kids and grandkids in the room. The patient spoke only Spanish and the grandson was translating. As I was exiting the grandma patient said something forceful so I turned and asked the man what she'd just said, and it was exactly that: "People in Healthcare should speak Spanish."
I was, well, insulted, speechless, fill in the blank. The patient had not been much of a problem until then. I stared at the grandson and didn't reply, just left. As I thought about it, I started thinking. I'm not a foreigner, why should I learn another language? I'm in the middle of the country to boot! And, why are these people insulting their caregiver anyway?
Talking this out with other nurses, I guess I wasn't the first one to hear such stuff. Is this something I should get used to?
but whay I think is REALLY REALLY RUDE... is when a foreign speaking nurse speaks Enlgish with an accent and then the patient asks for a nurse who speaks Enlgish!!!!!!!! OMG! that is sooooo bad too!!!
That is rude, however I have asked customer service reps to transfer me to another rep because I cannot understand them, or because they cannot understand the question I am asking. It's like their computer gives them a script in English to read based upon their interpretation of the customer's question! Sorry for the off-topic.
My experience here in Western Washington, is that some groups of immigrants take great pride in learning English and are offended when asked if they want an interpretor. There are others, at least two different groups I can think of off the top of my head, that seem to have made no effort whatsoever to learn English, regardless of the time spent in the US. Or they don't feel like they need to admit to knowing any English.
When I greet a Spanish-speaking patient, I ask if they speak English. If they say "a little" I reply with "well, I speak a little (actually more than a little) English, and we will get along just fine." And we do.
How can anyone compare people not speaking Native American to immigrants not speaking English??
Christopher Columbus "discovered" America CENTURIES ago. Everyone who came over here on a boat and pushed the Native Americans off the land and onto specific reservations is DEAD. I didn't control who came over here in the 14 and 1500's. Give me a break. Because I don't speak Native American languages doesn't excuse immigrants NOW, legal or illegal, from learning English. "Now" is the only thing anyone has any control over.
And I won't get started on the whole illegal immigration issue. I have taken care of patients that have come here STRICTLY for healthcare, stayed WEEKS in the hospital (since we can't turn them away in the ER, and once they're admitted, you can't really discharge them until they are "better"), and we never hear from them again (meaning, see their bills paid). I can think of one in particular that, due to the care she required, racked up a half a MILLION dollar bill, just in hospital expenses. Do you think that got paid? By anyone? Nope. She likely didn't even use her real name, much less an accurate address. Does this mean she got any poorer care than anyone else? NO. But it DOES in the long run contribute to the fact that we have to cut staffing, etc, because we're putting out millions that we never see again. Does this happen with people that aren't immigrants? Of course it does, I'm not saying it doesn't. But it's part of the problem.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
in a perfect world, anyone who came into the united states would learn perfect spoken english. but let's be real, this is far from a perfect world and this expectation is not realistic.
most of the people coming into the us from spanish-speaking countries are poor. they are coming here largely out of desperation...they need to feed their families and they cannot do this in their country. let's put aside the legal versus illegal for a moment...when you are trying to put food on the table for your children and get them an education you do what you have to do, including break some rules. can any one of us say that we would not do the same? if you have never seen the poverty that is rampant in mexico...go there and see it. then tell me that if you were in that situation you would not try to come over illegally to make life better for your children.
anyway, regardless of how they got here, these people are here, and they speak spanish. to say, "they chose to come here, they should speak the language" is arrogant. it's like saying those homeless bums should just go out and get a job, when we know there are so many barriers to that happening. most of the spanish speaking populaion i work with would love to learn english...who wouldn't? but how are they going to do it? they cannot afford schooling, tutoring, or classes. they are working sometimes two jobs trying to provide for their families. even if they could find free classes, where is the time? many of them are barely literate in their native tongue, how can they learn a second?
in general, we are the ones with the education, and many of us (not all of course) have led relatively privledged lives. i do not think it is asking much for us to learn a few words of spanish if we work with a predominantly spanish-speaking population. the families i work with try very hard with their english, despite numerous barriers. and yes, they may understand more than they would admit to, but they are most comfortable communicating in their native tongue and i understand that. if i was in a spanish speaking country, but had the option to speak with someone in my native english, of course i would be more comfortable with that too, especially where something as important as healthcare is involved.
i just wish that we as a country would be more understanding about the plight of these people before judging them so harshly. if we could walk a mile in their shoes, we might see that they are just doing what they have to do to provide a life for their families.
my grandparents who came from germany came without speaking a word of english. they were welcomed into the midwestern farming community by the farmers themselves -- most of whom spoke german, polish, norwegian. those people worked from dawn til dusk on the farm. there was no time for "english as a second language" class -- had there been classes in that rural community. they learned to speak english on their own. when speaking to the norwegian neighbors on the farm next to them, both families had to converse in the little english that they had. as the friendships within the community grew, people's english language skills improved. they didn't learn english because someone gave them a class after their eight hour day in the factory. they learned it by using it.
the difference is that many immigrants today -- and it always seems to be the spanish speakers i encounter who have this attitude -- don't even try to communicate with their neighbors in english. rather than try to assimilate, they keep to tightly knit spanish speaking communities. and we as americans accomodate their withdrawal from our culture by making it easy for them to continue to speak spanish only.
i don't see a whole lot of signs in my local sears store pointing out the way to women's clothing in urdu, hindi, swahili, french, cantonese, mandarin, vietnamese or cambodian. yet we have large immigrant communities who speak all of these languages. the folks who speak those languages learn enough english to get along and those who want to succeed learn more english and learn it better. it's only the spanish speakers who seem to need to be catered to. are we telling ourselves that spanish speakers are too dumb or too lazy to learn to get along in english like all the other immigrants in our community?
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
while we are busy wishing to legislate away foreigner speakers by making english the official state language, i want to toss in my 2¢ about pi. 3.14 has always been a highly inconvenient number, and i think we should legislate it to be 3.0, even. together, these joint legislative efforts should make communications and doing math in the united states much easier in the future.
no one suggested legislating away foreign speakers. we just suggested legistlating english as our national language. i don't even want to legislate away foreign speaking -- i just don't want to be expected to be fluent in the native language of every patient who crosses our threshold. that's unrealistic. and it puts the burden on those of us who live here to accomodate those who have come here to live.
The Constitution, Bill of Rights, etc. were drafted in English and English is good enough for me. Anyone who doesn't like that may feel free (and I encourage them) to request another nurse (although on our staff of over 45 RNs I don't think a single one knows or cares to learn Spanish ).
above all, i have to say i appreciate these posts as a general survey of the misunderstandings of basic american history, level of xenophobia, and lack of understanding and caring for patients that run through our society.
may all of you never have to flee to another country because you are denied the tools you need to provide for your family, or denied the healthcare you need to save your or your children's lives. i personally cannot imagine the magnitude of those situations, am thankful that i don't have to, and am more than willing to assist those who do.
above all, i have to say i appreciate these posts as a general survey of the misunderstandings of basic american history, level of xenophobia, and lack of understanding and caring for patients that run through our society.
may all of you never have to flee to another country because you are denied the tools you need to provide for your family, or denied the healthcare you need to save your or your children's lives. i personally cannot imagine the magnitude of those situations, am thankful that i don't have to, and am more than willing to assist those who do.
So we should all have to learn Spanish to accommodate the patient mentioned in the OP, but she should not make any attempt to learn English? I would not go to a hospital in a Spanish-speaking country and expect them to speak English - I would make a valiant effort to communicate with them in their native tongue out of respect for them and their country. It is exactly the same thing. Why is it okay for her to not care to understand English, but we should be required to bend over backward to learn her language? I have taken care of patients speaking many languages that I don't know - should we also all learn Icelandic, Swahili, Japanese, Russian, etc.? I could go on and on. What in particular makes her native language (but not my native tongue) so important? It is the sense of entitlement that really gets me.
I don't know why people get so offended at the suggestion that they expand their horizons and learn another language. In situations where someone is rude or entitled about it, then I understand being offended, but with a lot of people it seems like a knee-jerk reaction to get their feathers ruffled at the mere mention of another language. I've traveled to several different countries in Europe and Central America and almost everywhere I went people were at least bilingual.
Most likely that second language was English, correct?
I don't know why so many are offended at the thought of immigrants being expected to learn English.
Other thoughts unrelated to the quote above:
Every country in Western Europe has a different language, and travel between the countries is even easier than travel between states in the US due to geographic distances and infrastructure. Why do you think that every country in W. Europe teaches English? Because it is a common denominator language.
In India, the official language is Hindi. There are more than 20 recognized languages in that country, with hundreds more unrecognized. Everyone is taught Hindi and English, not Hindi and Urdu, not Hindi and Punjabi, etc. In 1965, the non-Hindi speaking peoples of India already knew English and were upset by the prospect of an Indian Babylon where no one understood each other.
In the US, with so many different languages spoken natively, English is the common denominator language. Expecting nurses to learn Spanish will not serve the Polish and Russian immigrants that live in great numbers in my city. As someone else has surely mentioned, which language should a nurse learn out of the dozens spoken here? By not encouraging/requiring/expecting people who live here to learn English, an American Babylon would be created. How chaotic and short-sighted.
It seems that many people want to vilify Americans who speak English as a first and only language, implying that they are xenophobic for not learning another language. Is it so politically correct to scream "stupid American," and then dare any English-only American to become offended by it?
Someone upstream mentioned the cost of classes and the time required to learn English. Doesn't that same reasoning apply to English-only Americans? Oh, we're privileged, so cost shouldn't be a factor. Really? What about time? Our privileged ways add another hour or two to a day? Please.
What non-English speakers have that English-only speakers don't is immersion. That is really the only way to become fluent, and it is the way that immigrants have ALWAYS learned English.
So we should all have to learn Spanish to accommodate the patient mentioned in the OP, but she should not make any attempt to learn English? I would not go to a hospital in a Spanish-speaking country and expect them to speak English - I would make a valiant effort to communicate with them in their native tongue out of respect for them and their country. It is exactly the same thing. Why is it okay for her to not care to understand English, but we should be required to bend over backward to learn her language? I have taken care of patients speaking many languages that I don't know - should we also all learn Icelandic, Swahili, Japanese, Russian, etc.? I could go on and on. What in particular makes her native language (but not my native tongue) so important? It is the sense of entitlement that really gets me.
'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.'
i never said any such thing. bringing in a family member to translate for her is an attempt to communicate in english, no? in my first post on here, i stated that she was obviously frustrated in her situation and was speaking, to her son and not the nurse mind you, from that place of frustration. i stated that i believe it is our job as nurses to not take such things personally, and to do what we can to provide comfort to our patients, as is our role.
not a hard concept to understand... or at least i thought. it's kind of the focus of nursing fundamentals. anyone ever heard of that?
above all, i have to say i appreciate these posts as a general survey of the misunderstandings of basic american history, level of xenophobia, and lack of understanding and caring for patients that run through our society.
may all of you never have to flee to another country because you are denied the tools you need to provide for your family, or denied the healthcare you need to save your or your children's lives. i personally cannot imagine the magnitude of those situations, am thankful that i don't have to, and am more than willing to assist those who do.
I really don't think that anyone here is saying that those that come to America don't deserve better lives. God Bless them for doing so. We ALL have ancestors that came here to settle. I believe what is being said is that if you're going to come here to live and work and breed and enjoy the land of 'milk and honey' then you should learn to adapt to the environment. One should be able to communicate in the country they reside in, in that specific country's native tongue. I thought that it was english but from reading some posts here, I guess I'm mistaken.
My father came here from another country and adapted. He has lived here for over 40 years and though some consider his accent heavy he can speak english and speak it well. I have friends whose parents have lived here for equally as long and can not (or will not) speak a word of english...I don't understand it.
above all, i have to say i appreciate these posts as a general survey of the misunderstandings of basic american history, level of xenophobia, and lack of understanding and caring for patients that run through our society.
may all of you never have to flee to another country because you are denied the tools you need to provide for your family, or denied the healthcare you need to save your or your children's lives. i personally cannot imagine the magnitude of those situations, am thankful that i don't have to, and am more than willing to assist those who do.
Of course I am thankful that I don't have to. However, at the risk of sounding cold-hearted:
WE CAN'T FIX OR SAVE EVERYONE. It's just not feasible, and attempting to do so is, in part, why our own system of healthcare delivery is failing....we cannot afford to continue to treat countless patients for free. People that are from here, and live here, also either get denied healthcare and are unable to save their own lives or their children's lives. Because we try to spread our healthcare dollars so far around, we come up short. Americans end up drawing the short healthcare straw because of the expenses of illegal immigrants. How is THAT okay?
).
redhead_NURSE98!, ADN, BSN
1,086 Posts
That is rude, however I have asked customer service reps to transfer me to another rep because I cannot understand them, or because they cannot understand the question I am asking. It's like their computer gives them a script in English to read based upon their interpretation of the customer's question! Sorry for the off-topic.