Houston Hospital System Deals With Shortage of Interpreters

Administrators at three hospitals in the Houston-based Harris County Hospital District plan to hire more interpreters, look for more certified volunteers and consider paying interpreters more as the hospitals face a "dire shortage of interpreters," the Houston Chronicle reports. Almost 3,000 patients receive treatment each day in the district and the three hospitals staff 20 Spanish-language interpreters -- two or three are on call on weekdays and often one interpreter works weekends, according to the Chronicle. The district's Spanish-English interpreters usually see 26 to 30 patients per day, and a phone bank provides services for speakers of other languages, the Chronicle reports. Dr. Ken Mattox, chief of staff at Ben Taub General Hospital, said "We have so few interpreters, and they never seem to be available when you need them." Although hundreds of employees in the hospital system speak other languages and about 260 employees are certified as bilingual, primarily in Spanish, administrators are "wary of using uncertified interpreters in life-threatening situations" and are unwilling to shift employees from their primary jobs. "It is one thing to speak Spanish. It is another thing to understand medical terminology," Mattox said. Hospital administrators say their goal is to have enough interpreters to lower interpreter response times to 15 minutes or less (Houston Chronicle, 12/10).