Immigrant Births Put Pressure on Hospitals

Yahoo News
By CARA ANNA, Associated Press Writer

UTICA, N.Y. - With nearly one in four American births now to a foreign-born mother, pressure is growing on health care centers to not only deliver babies, but deliver in more languages than one.

A report issued earlier this month by the Center for Immigration Studies says as of 2002, 23 percent of all births in the U.S. were to immigrant mothers. Births to Hispanic mothers accounted for 59 percent of those.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 says hospitals that get federal money must provide interpreter services. It just doesn't say how. Most hospitals reach out with phone-based interpretation services. But critics say the phone has limitations, especially during childbirth.

"What, are they going to pass the receiver back and forth while the doctor is catching the baby?" asked Dr. Francesca Gany, director of the Center for Immigrant Health at the New York University School of Medicine. "Health care facilities are definitely feeling the heat."

One hospital in Madison, Wis., said requests for interpreters more than doubled, to more than 4,000 requests a year, between 2000 and 2003. In Columbus, Ohio, Children's Hospital in 2002 had almost 8,000 requests for interpreters.



The saga continues.