Language Barrier

Janet · February 2004

One of our facilities employs several foreign workers, most of whom speak little or no English. We have a woman who had a work comp injury there, and she speaks no English. Her husband, also an employee, translates for her.

The husband is rather dominant and has accompanied his wife to her doctor appointments, ostensibly to translate but also, we suspect, to keep his thumb on the situation.

The doctor that the patient had been seeing has refused to treat her further. The doc won't say why, but we suspect it's because of the husband's domineering behavior.

How much latitude do we have to insist that the husband stay out of it? I understand that if her appointments are during working hours we can disallow him from leaving work but, under FMLA, I don't think we can. (We could probably find a translator to accompany her--and drive her--she doesn't drive, either).

Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!

Balloonman · February 2004

Either you or the clinic must provide the translator, then the clinic can tell the hubby to wait in the lobby/waiting area.
I have never been a big fan of allowing spouses into these exams/meetings related to the injury.
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman

lnelson · February 2004

I agree with Bolloonman. Usually the clinic has bi-lingual personnel.

Janet · February 2004

Thanks for your input. Normally there would be bi-lingual staff; however, our employees are Bosnian--it's very difficult to find a translator for this!

Don D · February 2004

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 02-27-04 AT 01:33PM (CST)[/font][br][br]This is a good case in point for an employer having English as a condition of employment. In order to read work instructions, acknowledge and benefit from training classes, follow written business documents and follow written safety procedures, they absolutely must be able to read, write and communicate orally in English. Otherwise, you run the risk of employing worker-robots with limited or non-existent communication ability.

I edited 'communite' to 'communicate'. Wow, talking about a bad day!

Language Barrier

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