Mr. Bout engaged in a particularly heated exchange with the presiding judge over his demand for a Russian interpreter, a request denied by the court.
In consent decrees reached last month, the hospital agreed to install an audio-video interpretation system, supply live interpreters upon request, and pay $125,000 to the family of a deaf patient.
Family members or friends may not substitute for a trained interpreter unless requested by the patient, and bilingual staff members can only interpret in an emergency.
Yes, venues are responsible for providing event interpreters upon request, but imagine how many deaf fans consider this a barrier.
In two cases, for instance, patients said that a doctor's office and a Queens medical center both failed to provide sign-language interpreters when requested.
While activities aimed at facilitating access to professional interpreters will be important (systematic patient-language data collection; a central number for requesting an interpreter; telephone interpreting, etc)., these alone cannot create an institutional culture favorable to interpreter use.
Respondents mentioned several barriers that hampered communication when using formal interpreters: it takes too much time to request an interpreter, the conversation gets impersonal with an interpreter on the phone, and the conversation is reduced to one-liners.
Now, as fewer Japanese parents request interpreters for parent-teacher conferences at Westchester schools, the Japan America Learning Center has turned to book translations (of American financial tips into Japanese and Japanese fairy tales into English) to pick up the slack.
While some students might choose to request an interpreter for a few hours each week, for example, others might prefer to have someone for all their coursework and research.
Mr. Lee said he had requested an interpreter every time, but they insisted on dealing with him in English.
