Florida: Guest commentary: Language diversity is another way we care

[Harold Schiffman]

Guest commentary: Language diversity is another way we care
ALLEN WEISS, Special to the Daily News
4:29 p.m., Saturday, February 16, 2008


     I'm pleased to report that NCH Healthcare System has earned yet
another distinction. But this one is different. NCH received the first
ever Diversity Award from Hodges University, one of Florida's finest
private universities. We received this honor for "innovative
leadership in employment diversity which has enabled continued
excellence in Human Resources." When you review the rationale for the
award, the diversity at NCH really is quite astounding. Nearly half of
the new moms in our Labor and Delivery unit are primary non-English
speakers.

Our 3,500 colleagues speak 34 languages. They are: Albanian, Armenian,
Arabic, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Farsi, Czech, Mandarin, Taiwanese,
Hatak, Cantonese, Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian, French, German, Greek,
Hungarian, Italian, South Korean, Korean, Polish, Portuguese,
Rumanian, Russian, sign language, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai, Turkish and
Vietnamese.

And English.

Our employee base includes about 150 people who are certified
translators. We have been teaching English on campus to anyone in the
system who wants to improve his or her skills.

And our own Simon Blanco has been teaching Spanish since 2002. (I
know, because I'm one of Simon's perpetually struggling students.
Lastima!) We even have a machine, housed in the North Naples emergency
room, which supplies simultaneous translation from 150 languages to
English. This program is called MARTTI, for My Accessible Real-Time
Trusted Interpreter. For many of us, our parents or grandparents came
from other lands. (My own mother was born in Russia.) America has
always been a welcoming nation. Diversity is one of our great
strengths.

Part of our continuing challenge at NCH is to be compassionate to
those patients and families unfamiliar with our language and for whom
our hospital environment creates stress. In light of our current and
difficult national and local economy, the need for the whole community
as well as all NCH personnel to show compassion in all that we do has
never been greater. Most Americans understand, as the NCH Diversity
Award puts it, "We work better when we stand together."

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/feb/16/guest-commentary-language-diversity-another-way-we/
-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************