Press Conference on Language Access Law Suit against UNM Hospital

NM center on law and poverty

April 8, 2005

Summary of Remarks by Kim Posich, Executive Director

Eight years ago, community groups began to press for specific improvements to care at UNMH.

After eight years of concerted effort by these groups, very little has improved.

So today, these groups, led by the Community Coalition for Healthcare Access and joined by many other community groups and individuals, are here to express support for a measure of last resort. Today, the community, represented by the NM Center on Law and Poverty and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, are filing suit against our public hospital for discrimination against and violation of the civil rights of members of our community.

In some respects, UNMH has been one of NM’s darling institutions. Certainly, its medical staff is exemplary. But UNMH has lost its way. The administration seems to have forgotten what it means to be a public hospital. More and more, the administration has been failing to provide equal service to the full spectrum of county residents.

In fact, UNMH is breaking the law by failing to provide sufficient medical interpretation and translation services to its patients who need it. Consequently, many patients are being denied access to decent health care. This happens:

when patients do not get appropriate care because their health care providers cannot understand them as they describe what is wrong.
when their health care providers are unable to communicate diagnoses or prescribed treatment to them.
when their health care providers cannot tell them what is wrong with their children.
when, for any or all these reasons, they cannot give informed consent.
when the hospital puts children in the position of having to interpret beyond their developmental and linguistic abilities, asking them to communicate things that no child should have to communicate to his or her parents.
when hospital staff, inadequately trained to do so, are put in the position of having to interpret for patients or when other patients are pressed into impromptu service.

Without effective medical translation and interpretation services, the hospital is failing to provide equal health care for all its patients. Yet these inequalities are commonplace at UNMH. In a community as diverse as ours, in a state as diverse as New Mexico, this is unacceptable.

By failing to provide adequate medical interpretation and translation services, the hospital is violating federal law as well as the United States Constitution and the New Mexico Constitution.

Last Friday, we gave the hospital a courtesy heads-up that we are filing suit. Wednesday, they told us that they would start addressing these issues. We welcome this news. But after eight years of being ignored, misled and put off, the plaintiffs say – “we will work with UNMH to address our issues but we will press forward in the courts to ensure that they do”. So this morning, we have filed suit. The plaintiffs in this lawsuit are: The Albuquerque Metro Native American Coalition; NM Voices for Children; Enlace Comunitario; The Southwest Organizing Project; and The National Indian Youth Council.

The plaintiffs and the community demand that the hospital comply with the law, specifically that they provide, as prescribed by law, access to interpreters for all three major language groups in our community-- Spanish, Vietnamese and Navaho—and usage of on-call interpreters and telephonic interpretation for less frequently encountered languages.