How can the language barrier affect the delivery of Health Care?

All contacts with health care providers involves communication and health teaching. Language barriers can greatly interfere with a patient reporting of symptoms, a doctor understanding the patient's chief concerns, etc. As well, it would be very difficult to explain normal anatomy and the pathology found if doctor and patient can't communicate. Instruction about treatment, management, and medication would be greatly affected.

One partly effective strategy is using drawings and pointing, in situations when verbal communication cannot succeed. But drawing, pointing, and such secondary measures require extra time that doctors and nurses may not have nor wish to give.

The best strategy for patients is to take a bi-lingual friend or relative to any contact with health professionals. Many large-city hospitals have bi-lingual employees (example: near the USA - Mexican border or other big California cities), but most USA and overseas cities lack bi-lingual employees.

By the way, while the USA has growing populations of non-English speaking patients, the same difficulty can be found for USA citizens traveling abroad. It's best to carry a complete copy of recent health records--but, if a doctor in Another Country cannot read the language contained in the record, records may be just as ineffective as drawing pictures and pointing.