I was recently watching a television show which I love to watch: Untold Stories of the E.R. an Asian girl about ten was brought into the emergency room because she was having seizures. The family had been giving her cough medicine because the little girl was sick with a cold and had a cough.
When the parent came into the emergency room they were freaking out because they were afraid of what their daughter was experiencing and only spoke their language. They couldn't understand what the doctors were asking and the paramedic only spoke little of their language so all he understood was that the child had fell and possibly hit her head on the table. Luckily, their was a doctor on duty that night that spoke their language.
The E.R. doctor told the other doctor to ask them if she is on any medicine and what had actually happened. The family explained what had happened and after explaining what medicine she was taking for her cough the doctor decided that it was a good idea for the family to go back home and get all the medication that is in their medicine chest. After the family arrived back at the hops ital with a bag full of medicine the doctor asked them to take out the medicine that they have been giving their daughter. They pulled out a bottle that looked like a cough medicine bottle but it was actually a medicine to help prevent seizures.
While watching this it reminded me so much of the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. If the family was able to speak English or if there was a doctor on duty when the medicine was prescribed it would have possibly been prevented. Things like this can easily be prevented if the hospitals see how important it is to have interpreters on duty at all time.
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