ER Interpretation
By Sarah-Claire Jordan
Nothing is scarier than having to go to the emergency room for a life-threatening injury or sudden illness, except perhaps going to a hospital where no one else speaks your native language and you don’t speak English, for example, very well. This is the reality that many people living in the U.S. face every time they need to go to the emergency room.
The U.S. government has declared that any hospital receiving federal funding needs to have some sort of translation or interpretation service available for any patients that would need it, and in the languages most commonly spoken in the area. However, this could mean simply having a number to call with a telephone interpreter on the other end.
Having an actual person working directly with ER patients as an interpreter is the ideal solution. Studies have found that mistakes that could affect diagnosis and treatment happened much less with a professional interpreter than when a family member or bilingual staff member was asked to step in and do the job. The mistakes that are avoided can be matters of life and death, and have caused deaths in the past.
In less serious situations, a mistake can mean that a test is done that wasn’t needed, or that a patient has to stay longer in the hospital. While this isn’t life-or-death generally, it can be very expensive for patients, especially those that come from poorer immigrant families. If unnecessary costs can be avoided, they should be, and good interpreting can help with that.
Patients also tend to feel more confident in the care and treatment they are receiving when they have a professional interpreter working to help them. The fact that they are able to express themselves freely and will be understood by the hospital staff does wonders to ease stress and discomfort. In an emergency room, where time is of the essence, an accurate interpretation of what a patient is there for can help make sure they are attended to sooner rather than later.
Not only do ER interpretation services mean better care, they also mean less stress on family members who might have had to take off of work to bring the patient to the ER in the first place. Having to wait a long time to be seen by an ER staff member can also mean that they miss out on getting rides back home afterwards, resulting in having to call for a taxi or some other costly transportation method.
Something that many people might worry about when talking about getting more ER interpreters to work in hospitals is the fact that it might cost far too much. This is a legitimate concern, especially when hospitals often have to pay for their own translation and interpretation services if the federal funding isn’t enough to cover it all. However, if you do the math, the money a hospital would save from using professional interpreters would more than make up for the cost of employing them.
Category: Business Translation
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