Interpretation

We use a lot of interpretors at my hospital. Pretty much you try to elicit the services of a family member or a nurse or anyone really. If not you can always go to the translator phones.

This works most of the time. I was signed out an old man whose radiology was pending. His family had been in the ED earlier but had left and hadn't been back for a while. At some point he became really rowdy and kept trying to catch an Asian attending's attention and speak to her, but she couldn't speak hsi language and he kept being frustrated with her. Then he decided to get his clothes on and get off his bed and drag his IVNS on the ground.

So I somehow convinced him with somatic gestures to lay down on the bed and drove him over to the trauma room and plugged in the translator phones. Cantonese Chinese did not work so we were transferred to a Mandarin interpretor. This person could not understand him and got out of him that his language was some village dialect from around Shanghai, called Ningol. Then we are transferred again to a supervisor who tries multiple languages who then puts on another Mandarin interpreter. She tries very hard but in the end couldn't understand him and convinced herself that maybe he understood a little of what she was saying. So that was our attempt to communicate.

Meanwhile still no sign of the family. I am thinking social admit. I call their house and no answer and leave a message. Time goes on and around 2A we still dont have an answer from the family. We call again and finally get someone who we convince to come in.

He comes in very mad. Apparently the security guards were confused and thought he was just trying to sneak into the ED and didn't understand that he was the family member of someone in the ED. So it was really our (the ED's fault) that we couldn't dispo the village man all night.

If I had been him and NO ONE spoke my language and I had no clue what was happening or where my family was, I would have also been riled up.