Pomona College interpreters at Pomona Valley Hospital
As a child, Maria Laura Arciniega interpreted for her parents at the doctor’s office and other places where no staff spoke Spanish. As a teen, Hong Deng Gao interpreted for her mother, an immigrant from China, as she battled what would become a terminal illness.
Their experiences led them to launch Health Bridges, a volunteer program providing patients at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center with basic language interpretation, hospital navigation and enrollment in health coverage.
“I always felt there was a need for interpreters. I disliked going into offices and not having personnel that could answer my mother’s questions,” said Arciniega, a senior at Pomona College.
Growing up in La Puente, Arciniega did not feel comfortable translating medical terms for her parents. “I had to do my best to describe symptoms to the physician, sometimes they understood what I was trying to say, and other times they dismissed my input.”
Since Health Bridges officially launched in October 2015, Pomona College students have acted as coordinators and volunteers helping dozens of Spanish and Mandarin speakers.
They have helped 84 patients enroll in the Hospital Presumptive Eligibility (HPE) Medi-Cal program, a precursor to Medi-Cal that provides immediate health insurance coverage to qualifying low-income Californians and remains active for up to two months.
“Health Bridges totally aligns with the mission of the hospital,” says Lindsey Medina, volunteer coordinator at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center. “We’re always trying to make sure that all of our populations are served well. As a patient myself, it is difficult to understand how to navigate healthcare. It’s so much more difficult if you don’t speak the language the providers are speaking.”
In addition to
the on-the-floor language interpretation and HPE enrollment support,
Health Bridges connects patients to medical resources and services in
the community to improve preventative and follow-up care, but for that,
Arciniega says they need more funding and more volunteers.
Currently, Health Bridges operates
at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. from
Thursday to Sunday every week. They hope to expand to seven days a week
by recruiting more students from The Claremont Colleges. In the future,
the program plans to provide interpretation support for other high-need
languages and expand to other hospitals in the region.
To learn more about Health Bridges, visit healthbridgesclaremontca.weebly.com.
Submitted by Pomona College
