Summary
The discussion highlights the significance of bilingual healthcare and the challenges faced by the Latino community in accessing quality care. Cultural practices, such as the use of herbal remedies, need to be understood and respected by healthcare providers. Miscommunication in healthcare leads to safety issues, misdiagnosis, and even death. The need for legislation, like AB 1400, is emphasized to ensure equitable healthcare. Community knowledge plays a crucial role in promoting inclusivity. The call to raise awareness and advocate for better healthcare focuses on marginalized communities facing language barriers.
Transcript
We all want to welcome Jackie Hernandez from healthcare, speaker talking about some of the conditions in the Latino community. Okay, let’s give her a hand. Hi, Jackie. [Music]
Hello, everybody! Thank you for having me today. Um, just a little bit about myself: my name is Jacqueline Hernandez. I have an MPH in community health education. I’m a health educator as well, right now with the PHD Council program, which works with a lot of different groups like keywords, Thai CDC, the Garmin Center workers, and other workers that are affected right now from the pandemics.
So right now, that’s kind of my focus. Um, I’ve been working a lot with COVID-19 as a contact tracer and a health educator, and I’ve seen so much going on with workers to the point that I understand even more. So before we even had the pandemic, workers already suffered from health conditions in the workplace. They suffer not only conditions from the workplace, but they could not even get healthcare in many places, even if you had a job.
So here, I’m going to be talking a little bit about my story as well and how that connects to a lot of the issues that we all experience because we all work here, right? Or we have a parent who needs work, or even our elderly are working right now because there’s no long-term care. There’s no way for our communities to actually get the care they need.
So, um, I just wanted to talk a little bit about—I always translate myself, so you’re gonna see some stuff in Spanish. Um, it is part of my mission to also always advocate for bilingual care, and that includes me translating my slides in Spanish. [Music]
So, a little bit about myself. Um, I just have some information here just for you to read. I’m not going to read off of this. But, um, one of the biggest issues, I believe, in the Latino community, and not just the Latino community but in all multicultural communities, we see and we have talked about today the need for these services because it ensures that we are heard, that we have dignity, and that we are actually getting quality care.
So, I’m gonna tell you, the immigrants, my parents are Mexican, and throughout my whole life when I was a little girl, I had to translate everything from my parents, and I was just a child. I had no idea what really some documents that I was barely learning to read. But it was a need for our survival, and I feel like a lot of families who have childhood immigrants who do not speak English, we do rely on children to survive, to hopefully they have some grasp of what’s happening and they hopefully help us fill out the documents, the paperwork, you know, all of that. But when it comes to the doctor, this is where our lives are also very much in danger, and I really say danger because it’s true.
Um, when I was a little girl too, we would go to the doctor, and whatever was happening to my mom or my dad or even myself, who could explain to the doctor what was happening to us, what we were feeling, what we were thinking.
It was difficult because it was using simple words, simple language. Some of them tried, right? A lot of them come from a background, but they’re trying to understand us and trying to communicate with us. But most of the time, it’s not enough. And we know that because, um, most of the time when we would have a diagnosis, and it wasn’t what was wrong with me, they would give me medication. And at the end of the day, it wasn’t really what was going on, so I would have to go back again. And those are issues that some white communities don’t experience. People who speak English don’t experience. They go to a doctor, they understand, all right. But, you know, you go get your prescription, you’re good. For us, it’s not like that.
And then, I came to the point when I was 16. I actually had a surgery at that time for my tonsils. This was before my dad got his spine injured as a construction worker because he’s a construction worker, and that always takes a toll, language. So, he was working in construction since he was like 17. So, for him, it was, you know, the tool that you take on your back and you’re working hard, and you’re doing everything that you need to do to get your family through. And then you bust your back, and all of a sudden, you know, the employer doesn’t want to take the toll that it was at the work site. They take you off the healthcare, now your entire family doesn’t have healthcare. That’s happened to me, and thankfully, I had that surgery before that happened because if not, I would have died. I would have done it. I mean, where would I get healthcare or how much more would my healthcare bill weigh?
Um, so, healthcare should not be tied to employment, and I learned that at an early age. I was calling insurance companies, being like, “Hey, you know, I need…” I didn’t know what’s going on. I was only 16, again, I’m the person who needs to translate for my family. No one could tell me anything. I would be hours on the phone, crying, trying to get an answer, trying to understand like, how can we get healthcare? Why would you need to ask that question in a country that says it’s the best in the world? That’s not what it should be. The best country in the world will provide everyone healthcare, not tied to your job, right?
So, apart from that, let’s talk about statistics, right? 39.4% is worth Latinos. We are the highest minority in California. Next time, minority because if we all were together, all people were together, we would not be a minority.
With that said, the immigration population is expected to grow, and with that, it calls for multicultural, multilingual abilities as well for our healthcare needs. We have Spanish, we know here in L.A., precisely Spanish is the second biggest spoken language. I mean, we love Sanchez, come on, we have a name even there. So, we deserve to have better care. And if you go to a clinic right now, not everyone’s going to have bilingual care in whatever language you need. So, that’s, oh, that’s a huge problem.
The other thing that I want to point out is, maybe, maybe if you also relate to this, but as a Latina, I do take herbs and I take some teas as well for some of my elements. Some doctors shame that, and we need to have doctors understand as well that part of our culture is also some of our herbal remedies and stuff like this that we also get comfort from. We need to be respected in that sense culturally. We need to be understood. We need to be respected.
And then, right here, we have, like, this is kind of like the reasons why bilingual care is important. We know that miscommunication causes safety issues. So, if someone said a story about someone going into a hospital, a Thai person as well, and then they went to the hospital, at the end of the day, they came up with the wrong diagnosis, and then they ended up more sick. This also causes the issues. There’s also the cause of more death as well because of maltreatment, misdiagnosis, these kinds of things.
So, what are the benefits? All of these issues that you see right here, this whole list, this, and this is the bigger list, I just put some of these here because the research is there, you guys. Like, the research is there. There’s no reason why politicians can tell you that they don’t understand.
We give them the solution. All they have to do is pass the legislation. All they have to do is that. Just the benefits here, just a list of all the things that we would get with AB 1400, and we deserve this. And I want you all to say, “I deserve better healthcare. I’m a get started. I’m a human being that is dignified. My community and myself need healthcare, and I believe healthcare is a human right because we do, right?”
These are the things that we would get, and I really hope that we spread the word as far and wide as we can because our lives do depend on this. This is to fight for our lives, everyone. So, thank you so much. And this is just a quote if you would like to read it here, but we need a translation of community knowledge. It is the first step to ensuring equitable inclusion of diverse populations, and I truly believe that.
Oh man, what he’s saying makes so much sense, you know? It’s hard to get bilingual material. You know, if you want to talk about AB 1400, it’s hard to get bilingual material. Does that make sense? I mean, I think people of color are the majority of the city if I’m not mistaken, and two-thirds speak a different language, right? Okay, so why is it that there’s no language in AB 1400? Wow, think about that. That’s like all righteous, but that’s fat, that’s life. That’s why we’re having this program.
The discussion highlights the significance of bilingual healthcare and the challenges faced by the Latino community in accessing quality care. Cultural practices, such as the use of herbal remedies, need to be understood and respected by healthcare providers. Miscommunication in healthcare leads to safety issues, misdiagnosis, and even death. The need for legislation, like AB 1400, is emphasized to ensure equitable healthcare. Community knowledge plays a crucial role in promoting inclusivity. The call to raise awareness and advocate for better healthcare focuses on marginalized communities facing language barriers.
(The above transcript was generated by AI machines.)