Interpreter Use Increasing at Hospitals

DALLAS (AP) _ More U.S. hospitals are using language interpreters on live video and telephone hot lines to communicate with a growing number of patients who don’t speak English.

Parkland Memorial Hospital officials in Dallas say they’ve had a 40 percent increase in demand for interpretation services over the past two years. Patients there speak at least 77 languages, including Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean and Arabic.

Nationwide, the Census Bureau estimates some 24 million people over the age of 5 speak no or limited English.

Pediatrics Professor Glenn Flores says it’s not enough to grab a bilingual relative or friend to translate when someone is sick. The language barrier expert says more trained medical interpreters are needed to prevent life-threatening medical mistakes.

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