That was when the hospital called in Louisa Garcia.

Garcia is an employee in the hospital's day-care center and is bilingual. She is one of several staff members who is called in to translate for patients.

Language barriers are common obstacles in health care. But without a way to overcome them, they can hinder medical treatment.

A portable phone and a yellow language card can be the saving graces for doctors when patients come in speaking Hindi, Bulgarian, Swahili, Macedonian, or Tagalog among other languages.

Campbell County Memorial Hospital has a special phone line provided by AT&T that offers 125 different languages, said hospital spokesman Karen Clarke. The phone has two receivers for the doctor and the patient to get on the phone at the same time. The operator is the translator and go-between, she said.

Patients are presented with a card in which they point to their language, said Karen Foreman, nursing house supervisor. Hospital workers then punch in a code to be connected with an appropriate operator.

In the 15 years that Foreman has been at the hospital, the language is Spanish 90 percent of the time.

The machine is needed weekly, said Joan Wright, nursing house supervisor. Wright has used it for Russian, Japanese and other languages. The benefit is that it offers accurate technical terminology, she said.

The machine is also portable and can be quickly moved to the emergency room, radiology or obstetrics, Foreman said.

Emergency room physician Frank McHugh has used the phone about seven times in the last year for languages including Korean, Portuguese and German, he said.

“It's got everything,” he said.

Before the phone was available, doctors had to call on a regular phone and pass it back and forth.

“This is real time,” he said.

Having some form of translator is crucial to patient care and ensures that no mistakes are made.

“With all the fancy tests we have ... 95 percent of diagnosis is still (having) a good history,” McHugh said. “History is everything.”

Allowing the patient to explain what they need in their own language also relaxes them. As soon as they start speaking their own language, the stress lines on their faces disappear, he said.

The phone is an important tool for the hospital, but whenever possible, real people are brought in.

Those who translate at the hospital are usually hospital employees, Clarke said. They need to be connected to the medical community because of the difficulty in translating medical terminology, she said.

Several hospital staff members speak Spanish, another speaks German and one speaks Japanese, Clarke said. There also are several others who can communicate in American Sign Language.

McHugh likes being able to provide a face with the words.

“It adds a little warmth,” he said.

Medical workers often translate even when the patient has a family member present with them who is bilingual, Foreman said. The concern always has to do with consent and making sure the patient understands, she said.

Garcia said that one reason patients trusted her is because she had been a hospital employee. (Garcia is on an extended medical leave from her job due to a back injury.) The trust is crucial so that everything the doctor needs to know can be communicated - from the basics like name, allergies and Social Security numbers to personal history questions.

Once a patient is comfortable with the translator, he or she can communicate exactly what is needed or wanted.

“It's amazing the difference it makes in a patient,” she said.

When she was working, she received calls from every department, including the kitchen, where workers wanted help translating the menu.

Garcia and others who can translate often will come in whenever they are needed.

“We just get up and go in the middle of the night,” she said.

Her favorite calls come from obstetrics. She loves working with the new babies, she said.

Garcia often will follow up with patients like Melendez and make sure they know how to care for the babies and follow other doctor instructions.

If a patient is especially scared, she will spend the night at the hospital so that they can reach her immediately if she wants something.

Baerbel Merrill, vice president of nursing services, speaks fluent German. She gets called to translate about twice a year, usually in the emergency room and usually for people traveling and not from the area. She, too, will often visit with them when she is done with work to ensure they are comfortable and have everything they need.

“It's pretty frightening if you have to go the hospital and you don't speak English,” she said.

Garcia can relate. When she moved to Wyoming years ago, she didn't speak English.

“I just put myself in their place,” she said.

For months, the only way that Melendez knew that she was taking care of Selena correctly was the feedback she received from Garcia.

It was frightening enough that her daughter was sick, but even scarier was the worry that she wasn't telling the doctor everything he needed to know or that she wasn't fully understanding his instructions, she said.

Selena was brought back to the hospital multiple times for check ups and Melendez's fear was only eased by knowing that Garcia would be there waiting for her.

Garcia admits that she gets something out of helping the others.

“It's knowing I helped somebody when they most needed it,” she said.

In some cases, she gets to form friendships with some of those she helped. Seeing those like the Melendezes months later is a big reward.

But the best part is seeing babies like Selena - perfectly healthy, in part, because of her help.

By Kelsey Dayton
http://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/articles/2006/01/29/news/news05.txt