Team,
It may come as no surprise to you that our health care system consistently fails the more than 25 million in the United States whose primary language is not English. This population ranges from newly arrived refugees to communities indigenous to the U.S.
Language barriers significantly impact safe and effective health care, causing misdiagnoses and unnecessary or missed medical care. As a result, immigrant communities experience worse health outcomes and higher costs.
We recently released a report that highlights the challenges immigrants often face trying to communicate while accessing medical care. Here are just a few of their stories:
- A Sudanese woman attended therapy at an outpatient clinic but was not offered an interpreter in the sessions with a social worker. The social worker wrote out a treatment plan, including medicated interventions, but the woman didn’t understand them and as a result, her mental health did not improve.
- An older Bhutanese woman refused surgery after the hospital provided her with an interpreter who didn’t understand her dialect. The interpreter told her that she was being prepped for “surgery,” The word for “surgery” meant “funeral” in her language. *As shared by Sudarshan Pyakurel, Executive Director of Bhutanese Community of Central Ohio
- A Congolese elder was diagnosed with high blood pressure but couldn't understand his treatment plan due to poor interpretation. As a result, he suffered complications and had to be hospitalized. *As shared by Regine Ndanga, LMSW of the Partnership for the Public Good in Buffalo, New York
While these are just a few examples of what immigrants with limited English proficiency endure, situations like these are unfortunately all too common throughout the country. Health care should be a human right for everyone — not just those who speak a certain language.
Our report lays out the clear and actionable policy interventions that MUST happen to address this totally unacceptable situation. By increasing the quality of language services, making them more widely available, and strengthening both provider and patient understanding of existing rights and tools, we can improve the health of millions of families in the U.S.
And at NILC, we’re committed to making that happen.
With your support, we can continue to fight for immigrants’ access to proper care and work together to create a fairer, more inclusive health care system that serves all members of our diverse community.
Friend, your donation to our end-of-year campaign will provide us with the resources we’ll need to create a more equitable healthcare system and conduct outreach to immigrant communities to provide potentially life-saving information.
Our work wouldn’t be possible without the support of people like you who share our mission.
Thanks,
Ben D’Avanzo
Senior Strategist, Health Advocacy
National Immigration Law Center
Your donation could be boosted even further with a matching gift from your employer! Click to learn more at www.nilc.org/matchinggifts.
Mailing address for checks: National Immigration Law Center, P.O. Box 743013 Los Angeles, CA 90074-3013
