More Spanish Speaking Nurses Sought
Pushing Diversity with Care
By Tammie Smith, Media General News Service

Iris Maldonado Davis was born on the United States mainland to parents who came from Puerto Rico , so she spoke English and Spanish at home.

As a registered nurse, her ability to speak two languages comes in handy at work.

Health-care providers, in order to care for growing numbers of Spanish immigrants showing up at hospitals and clinics, are making extra efforts to recruit nurses like Davis who are bilingual.

"I think it makes me very marketable," said Davis, who since October has worked on the Bon Secours Richmond Health System's Care-A-Van, a mobile health clinic. The van goes to different neighborhoods in the Richmond area. At some stops most of the patients are Hispanic, many who have not yet learned English.

"I've been in Virginia for 20 years, and I've used my Spanish more in the last seven months," Davis said last week as she prepared for a prenatal/gynecological clinic offered during the Care-A-Van's stop at Dutch Village Apartments in South Richmond .

When non-English speaking patients show up, many health-care providers rely on telephone-based interpretation services. They also use Spanish-speaking volunteers and other staff to help translate, but have to make sure they are in compliance with federal patient-privacy laws.

The Virginia Department of Health recently launched a Web site that translates some common medical phrases into Spanish, with plans to expand that to more languages.

A push is on, however, to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of the nursing work force, which right now is overwhelmingly white. A 2004 federal survey of registered nurses that asked a question about race found the breakdown to be: 88.4 percent white, non-Hispanic; 4.6 percent black, non-Hispanic; 3.3 percent Asian or Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic; 1.8 percent Hispanic; and 0.4 percent American Indian/Alaskan native. Approximately 1.5 percent were from two or more racial backgrounds.

According to 2004 U.S. Census Bureau figures, the U.S. population is about 75.5 percent white, about 12.2 percent black, and about 14.2 percent Hispanic or Latino of any race.

Those kinds of figures are behind efforts like those at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Nursing to recruit more Hispanic and Spanish-speaking nurses. The nursing school was awarded a three-year, $601,000 federal grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration. Some of the money is being used to hire a person to recruit Hispanic and Spanish-speaking students to a weekend nursing program.

"What we're finding is that the Hispanic population in the Richmond area has dramatically increased, so that people who are in health care are really looking for nurses who speak Spanish," said Martha Moon, an associate professor at the VCU School of Nursing. "We are trying to approach it from two angles: recruiting Hispanics as well as offering [Spanish language] classes on this campus."

The weekend nursing program at VCU targets nurses who have earned nursing diplomas. In the program, the nurses go to classes one weekend a month to work toward a bachelor's degree in nursing. The grant does not pay the students' tuition.

"When we look around, we see there are Spanish-speaking nurses out there and nurses of Hispanic background who are hitting the glass ceiling," Moon said. "Unless they have a baccalaureate they cannot advance in the profession." Davis completed the RN to BSN - registered nurse to bachelor of science in nursing

Milagritos "Millie" Flinn, who is of Peruvian descent, has been hired as a recruiter. Flinn said she has heard many stories of language and cultural barriers interfering with patient care.

Health-care providers are addressing that in a variety of ways.

Many provide patient education materials and forms in multiple languages.

Informational signs in the emergency department and main lobby of Henrico Doctors' Hospital, Parham campus, are in English and Spanish, said hospital spokeswoman Tiffany Taylor-Minor. There isn't a special emphasis on recruiting bilingual nurses, she said, but staff who are bilingual may be rewarded with additional pay.

At CJW Medical Center , registered nurse Carol Thornton said they look at diversity from all aspects.

"Diversity includes a lot of different things, not just ethnic background, but religion, anything that people may consider makes them different from someone else," said Thornton, who heads up that hospital's diversity initiative. She said staff have access to a manual that describes customs and traditions of different ethnic, racial and religious groups.

"These are guidelines," said Thornton . "In all the teachings we do we really stress the importance of not stereotyping."

Critics say efforts to accommodate language differences remove the incentive to learn English.

"We hope everyone will learn English, but many of our patients are new to the country, and others are very underserved, so there hasn't been the opportunity to learn," said Eletta Hansen, a registered nurse and director for community health services for Bon Secours Richmond. "We encourage and teach some [English as a Second Language] classes."

Moon said a nurse's first concern is caring for the patient.

"We cannot withhold care because they do not speak our language."