Essay Example on Latino Immigrants' Struggle with Language Barriers in Healthcare

The language barrier is a significant challenge for Latino immigrants who are unable to speak the Spanish language, which is mostly used as the primary language. When the immigrant visit healthcare facilities, the language barriers make it hard for the immigrants to access healthcare because communication is key between the patients and the healthcare workers. The language barrier makes it hard for the patients to explain to the doctors their health history, which is a requirement for treatment. The paper discusses the impact of language barriers on healthcare for Latino immigrants.

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Latino immigrants experience a language barrier because the language they speak is not the majority language. When these people visit health facilities, they may fail to get quality health services because of the lack of understanding between them and the healthcare provider (Meuter et al. 372). In some facilities, there may be no interpreter or his/or her interpretation may be inaccurate. When an interpreter is not available, the immigrant patients have no choice rather than to speak the language of the majority. In so doing, they will be unclear, and misdiagnosis is highly likely to occur. When a patient visits a health facility, and there is no interpreter. After trying to communicate in the majority language, he/she realizes that the healthy provider does not understand he is highly likely to be psychologically stressed and more anxious. Latino immigrants prefer being treated by a Latino physician as he/she will understand them better because of the use of the same language as well as culture. However, this is not always possible due to the limited number of Latin physicians. Still, the effect of the language barrier can be minimized by at least having more bilingual health workers.

The language barrier between patients of Latin origin affects the effectiveness of treatment. To collect diagnosis, both the patient and the health profession must understand each other. After diagnosing, the doctor needs to explain to the patient the treatment options and the possible side effects of each treatment plan (Meuter et al. 373). If there is a language barrier between the patient and the doctor, then it means the patient may make an uninformed decision. The risk is also high when the patient fails to follow the medication instructions such as taking medicine before or after a meal or even taking medicine for a specified period. If there is a lack of understanding, a patient may take medicine less or longer than required, thus reducing its effectiveness. Also, the language barrier inhibits conveying information regarding possible side effects of medication. When a patient experiences these effects, they may stop taking the medication, thereby rendering the treatment plan ineffective.

When there is no interpreter, both Latino patients are compelled to use limited English proficiency. This affects the quality of health service for the patient as it promotes the feeling of being a burden (Steinberg et al. 1323) A patient who has limited proficiency of English language shies away from asking for clarification from the provider for fear of not being understood or the provider feeling bothered by the patient. This affects the effectiveness of treatment as the patients cannot even raise concerns regarding what they should not eat or drink when taking medicine or even open up on allergic reactions when taking some medicines.

Language barriers increase the number of Latino immigrants in health facilities with bilingual health professionals. With limited resources, including the health personnel, the facilities are affected, and the quality of services offered decreases. The majority of Latino immigrants prefer the facilities with bilingual providers as compared to interpretations (Steinberg et al. 1322). Patients visiting facilities where the providers can speak both English and Spanish are more satisfied since there is improved communication, strong rapport as well as improved understanding. Some patients leave facilities in their neighborhood and travel for many miles to the facilities with bilingual health providers. With a Spanish health provider, they can ask questions and seek clarification.

A language barrier increases the risk of medical errors among immigrant that live and visit Latino countries. The language barrier is likely to cause misinterpretation where the doctors interpret communication wrongly from the patients leading to the wrong prescription of the medicine (Garcia and Laura 124). The doctors need to communicate with immigrants who seek medical attention from the health facilities. Medical errors where doctors treat wrong diseases are common among the immigrants in Latino countries because most healthcare providers are unable to speak other languages such as English. Health activists are advocating for healthcare workers to learn other languages as a measure to break the language barrier between immigrant patients and healthcare professionals.

Language barriers between immigrants and Latino health workers also cause misunderstandings, animosity, and frustrations among the patients and healthcare professionals. The frustrations come when there is nobody to help in breaking the communication barrier (Garcia and Laura 125). Healthcare workers opt to ignore and avoid treating immigrant patients. Immigrants are forced to travel to other neighboring countries to get healthcare services where they are assured of access to healthcare with good communication between the patient and the healthcare professionals. Patients who have encountered a language barrier while seeking health services prefer returning to their home countries when they fall sick because of the fear of misdiagnosis.

Healthcare seeks to find the welfare of the patients where the healthcare professionals form relationships with the patients; the relationships are important in creating confidence among the patients. The relationships help the doctors to understand the health conditions they might be suffering from (Meuter et al. 371). The immigrants feel as if they are discriminated against when they fail to access healthcare when they have turned away because of the communication barrier. The patients also get delayed in accessing healthcare because they have to wait for the communication to be interpreted for them to be treated.

Technology is transforming access to medical care for immigrants vising Latino countries. Technology is facilitating the translation of different languages to create understanding between immigrant patients and Latino healthcare professionals (Meuter et al. 371). Medical professionals are embracing technologies to translate different languages of the immigrant patient into the Latino language that they are able to understand. Immigrant patients are beginning to access healthcare when they visit Latino countries through the help of technology translations.

Conclusion

The communication barriers between immigrant and Latino doctors prompt the doctors to seek the services of interpreters. There are instances where the interpreters misinform the doctors about the illness the patient is suffering from (Steinberg et al. 1340). The interpreters do not have the skills to interpret all the languages of people that visit Latino. This narrows the number of immigrants that can access healthcare. In conclusion, language barriers deny immigrants from accessing medical care while visiting Latino countries. There is various intervention being made to reduce the language barrier between immigrant's ant health professionals to facilitate access to healthcare.

Works Cited

Meuter, Renata FI, et al. "Overcoming language barriers in healthcare: a protocol for investigating safe and effective communication when patients or clinicians use a second language." BMC health services research 15.1 (2015): 371.

Garcia, Carolyn M., and Laura J. Duckett. "No te entiendo y tu no me entiendes: language barriers among immigrant Latino adolescents seeking health care." Journal of cultural diversity 16.3 (2009): 120-126.

Steinberg, Emma M., et al. "The "battle" of managing language barriers in health care." Clinical pediatrics 55.14 (2016): 1318-1327.