Texas hospitals now catering to Spanish speaking patients

Medical: Not enough to get by but enough where the thought of having to learn English and assimilate into American society is not needed.

At Dallas hospitals, there are now signs in Spanish as well as "translation phones." Texas medical schools are teaching Spanish to the state's future doctors. And physicians and insurers are focusing more on diabetes, a particular problem among Hispanics. Such accommodations are not without controversy. Some argue not enough is being done to tailor care to a group expected to account for nearly 60 percent of the state's population in 30 years. They say doctors working in Texas should be required to speak Spanish, or at least have a better understanding of the Hispanic culture. But others bristle at the notion doctors should spend time in medical school learning a foreign language rather than honing their craft. "I think the reasonable thing is for doctors to learn how to practice medicine well," said Dr. Jerry Frankel, a Plano urologist who recently retired after 33 years. "If you make the doctor speak Spanish, then what about Chinese? ...Where do you draw the line?" And the accommodations go well beyond language. At Parkland, for example, all medical forms are now available in Spanish and the hospital is installing Spanish signs. More than 300 special telephones with two phone handsets serve as electronic translators throughout the hospital. Patients talk into one receiver in their native tongue to a distant translator about their ailment; their doctor listens at the second handset as the translator explains the problem in English. Texas Health Resources, the largest hospital system in North Texas, has made its entire Web site – www.texashealth.org – available in Spanish as well as English. The system, which includes Harris and Presbyterian hospitals, says it is the first, and so far only, local hospital system to do so. Many of Texas Health's 13 hospitals hold health fairs with names like "Fiesta Diabetes" and "Hispanic Wellness Fair." In San Antonio, the country's largest Hispanic-majority city, Methodist Healthcare System last month became the first and only U.S. hospital to be designated a "Hispanic Healthcare Hospital" by the Diversity Health Care Program of Mexico, a Mexico-based advocacy group for better Hispanic health. Methodist Healthcare impressed the judges with Spanish used in everything from legal documents to the magazines on waiting room coffee tables.

Fun times ahead