Medical providers struggle to communicate with immigrant patients

Washington Post, April 21, 2009

As immigrant communities swell around the country, hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare providers are increasingly confronted with language and cultural challenges that can discourage people from seeking care and lead to calamitous errors in diagnoses and treatment regimens. Hospitals and doctors, however, are wary of the cost of interpretation services, which can run up to $190 an hour. They say the government, not them, should pay these costs.