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 Health & Beauty | August 2006 
Language Barrier an Issue in Child's Death
 Associated Press
| | "Spanish translates to English, but translating medical speak into any language constitutes a more substantial challenge." |
Grand Island, Neb. — The death of 2-year-old Axtziryg Cabral illustrates the problems that arise from language and cultural barriers in medical care, health officials said.
The family of Irma and Fernando Cabral of Guadalajara, Mexico, was in Grand Island visiting relatives this summer when Axtziryg fell ill. No one in the family speaks English.
Several doctors examined Axtziryg, but the seriousness of her condition wasn't apparent until her breathing became labored and her heart stopped twice on an emergency room table.
"They were told she had liver problems, and they were told an infection in her brain (killed her)," said Claudia Aguilar, immigrant advocate for Hope Harbor. "He (Fernando) feels upset about it. They knew she had a fever for a reason, but they were told, 'Go home. It will get better on its own.'"
The Cabrals sought help for Axtziryg from Hope Harbor. Aguilar suggested the emergency room at St. Francis Medical Center, where the family took her three times in three days before Axtziryg was transferred to Children's Hospital in Omaha. She died there five days after her second birthday on July 25.
Fernando Cabral, with Aguilar acting as an interpreter, said he wants to know why his daughter wasn't initially hospitalized, why it took more than a week for her body to be sent home, and whether the family made a good decision in donating Axtziryg's organs after she died.
"They want to know if it was worth it, and they want to know what else could have been done," Aguilar said. "He said they saw a different doctor each time, and he feels they should have run more tests."
But because of the language barrier, Aguilar said, Cabral couldn't get his message across.
The Cabrals' case illustrates the difficulty of conveying important medical information across significant linguistic and cultural barriers.
Candy Houdek, manager of interpretive services at St. Francis Medical Center, said the most common points of contact between her department and most non-English-speaking immigrants are in the emergency room and the birthing center.
During times when interpreters are not on staff, there is a "language line" through which interpreters are available 24/7. But she said there's no handbook explaining how someone's cultural background comes into play when that person goes to a hospital.
The interpreters work with doctors to help them understand cultural issues that might cause a problem in getting across information, Houdek said, although some issues are more complex than others.
The complexity of language represents another challenge, said Odalys Perez, executive director of the Grand Island Multicultural Coalition. Spanish translates to English, but translating medical speak into any language constitutes a more substantial challenge, Perez said.
"If you take my car to the mechanic, I don't care what language he's speaking, I'm not going to understand it," she said. "Some people feel the same way about doctors. They think, 'I won't understand, so why try?'" |
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