A large percentage of Minnesota COVID-19 patients don't speak English

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A large percentage of Minnesota COVID-19 patients don't speak English
Outbreaks at meat packing plants, health disparities mean disease is hitting immigrants hard.

https://www.startribune.com/a-large-percentage-of-minnesota-covid-19-patients-don-t-speak-english/570772542/


By Maya Rao Star Tribune
May 26, 2020 — 7:40pm
Elizabeth Flores – Star Tribune


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As of mid-May, 22% of the Minnesota Department of Health's interviews with people who had laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases required an interpreter — more than five times the proportion of the state's population lacking fluency in English.

At least part of the trend is driven by outbreaks at meatpacking plants ....................


But the health department and major health care organizations had no explanation for why the number is so much higher than the roughly 4% of the state's population who reported to the U.S. Census Bureau that they speak English "less than well."

"In general, health disparities have really come to the surface with COVID-19," said Idolly Oliva, director of language services at the M Health Fairview health care services provider in Minneapolis. "More than ever, language services are crucial to control the pandemic."

When the pandemic hit, M Health Fairview shifted its 60 staff interpreters to call centers to communicate with patients remotely as in-person interactions grew risky. Medical staff contact interpreters over iPads mounted on a cart with wheels — dubbed an "interpreter on a stick" — and conference phone devices. When videoconferencing is not possible, the system shifts to audio.



On a daily basis, 30 to 40% of M Health Fairview's COVID-19 patients have needed an interpreter, a spokesperson said. In-house interpreters work in 16 languages, with Karen and Somali being the top non-English languages related to COVID-19 cases.

Oliva said M Health Fairview has worked with researchers around the U.S. to help interpreters explain medical terms in some languages. Some are newer languages with more limited vocabularies and speakers may come from countries with different health care systems, she said. Interpreters also work with providers to help them rephrase or ask more open-ended questions that fit a patient's culture.................................................



The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) interviews with COVID-19 patients spanned 27 languages other than English. A majority of them took place in Spanish and Somali, 57% and 28%, respectively. Karen accounted for 5%, Amharic 2%, and all other languages 8%. Those numbers don't include people interviewed for contact tracing, said Julie Bartkey, an MDH spokeswoman. And she noted that not all those who tested positive for the coronavirus have been interviewed yet.....................................



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Elizabeth Flores, Star Tribune
Interpreter Shafik Hassan took a call from a Somali language caller at the M Health Fairview call center, Wednesday, May 20, 2020 in Minneapolis.