Spanish-Speaking Medical Workers Needed Growing Hispanic Population Requires Bilingual Staffers

Mayra Ruiz grimaces as a physician’s assistant sticks a needle in her big toe, numbing it before he works on her infected toenail.

In some doctors’ offices, Ruiz, who speaks only Spanish, might have a hard time understanding what is going on or how to care for her toe.

She is lucky because David Miller, her physician’s assistant at Terry Reilly Health Services in Nampa, is bilingual.

But there are not enough David Millers to go around. Nampa’s Mercy Medical Center, Terry Reilly medical clinics and other Canyon County health facilities always are trying to recruit health-care professionals who speak Spanish.

“We advertise for bilingual nurses,” said Dr. Bob LeBow, medical director of Terry Reilly. “We advertise, but we can’t get them.”

In January 1995, an estimated 14.9 percent, or 15,854 of Canyon County’s 106,400 residents were Hispanic, up from an estimated 13.1 percent in 1990. Canyon County is home to more Hispanics than any other Idaho county.

Boise State University, which is training more workers to care for them, will hold a conference this week in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Hilary Straub, associate professor of nursing, will talk about the language and cultural barriers facing Hispanic patients.

Translators are all right, as long as they understand the doctor well enough to translate correctly, Straub said.

“What do you call the uterus, and then what does the client call the uterus?” Straub asked.

At Mercy Medical Center, about 15 percent of 7,000 to 8,000 inpatients each year are Hispanic. In the maternity unit, it is 20 percent.

Some Hispanic patients not only speak a different language, but have different cultural notions about health care.

For example, some couples ask LeBow whether they should place a quarter on their newborn babies’ belly buttons, “to keep the belly button in, so it doesn’t come out,” LeBow said.

“I say I don’t think it does any good, but it doesn’t do any harm either,” he said. “If you want to do it, you can. I never belittle it.”

To help them, more than half the clinical staff at Terry Reilly clinics speak English and Spanish, said LeBow, who is bilingual.

“What if you were in Mexico and you got sick and you had to go to a clinic where no one spoke English, and everybody there was Hispanic?” he asked.