Barriers that Hispanics/Latinos face being in a Nursing Home Care

Ghada Hamdan
HCA 480
April 21, 2016

                                  “Barriers that Hispanics/Latinos face being in a Nursing Home Care”
 
One of the hardest decisions in life is to move an aging loved one into a nursing home, not only that but also that person comes from a different diverse culture, where he does not speak a word of English. Having a different background, I can only imagine how hard it would be on someone to communicate with others, knowing that they don’t have a language in common. In the Hispanic/ Latino tradition, the elderly loved ones would live out their years at home, getting their care from a family member. In that culture, respect, loyalty, and reciprocity are highly valuable among family member, these days and due to many factors that families are faced with  such as economic, busy lifestyle, working double shifts or many other reasons, the loss of the caregiver factor has decreased over the past years, leading to the fact that more Hispanic/Latino elders are moving to nursing homes to receive there long term care.

As the growth of the Hispanic/ Latino population in the United States has increased over the past years, many Latinos have been entering nursing homes at a growing rate. According to the article on NBC Latinos website, from 1999 to 2008, the number of elderly Hispanics living in U.S. nursing homes rose by 54.9 percent. The aging Hispanic/Latino population is expected to grow more rapidly than other ethnic minority group by 2028 and experts say it is growing 3.9 percent per year from 1990 to 2050.” (NBC Latino, 2012) I have visited a nursing home so many times in my life due to the fact that my grandmother was placed in a nursing home after my grandfather died, and many of family members did not live in the United States at that time, and all the members that lived here had a very busy lifestyles and could not take care of my grandmother who had a stroke. One of the hardest decisions that we have made was to place my grandmother in a nursing home facility, in order to get all the care that she would be in need of. One of the struggles that she had was the lack of communication with the caregivers, as she could not explain her needs, because she did not speak English. Moreover, my grandmother went through a phase of depression as she was feeling helpless, when she  had a hard time expressing her needs, as the caregivers did not understand what she was saying, and not all nursing homes have interpreters available, so that’s what made it a big struggle for my grandmother.

There are many barriers that the elderly Latinos face while being in a nursing home, such as limited English proficiency could be a substantial barrier for communication for the Latino elderly being in a long term facility. These barriers could have an effect on many things related to quality of health care delivery, such as difficulty to communicate with doctors, nurses or any medical staff, as that person is going to have a difficulty explaining his concerns where that could lead to dissatisfaction and have a negative healthcare outcomes. Limited English proficiency has been considered to be a barrier to accessing medical care. Many older adults have been facing barriers and this is due to lack of culturally competent providers. Also, an effective communication method plays an important role, between medical providers and their patients, as it impacts the quality of patient care, medical outcomes, and patient safety. Moreover, there are many occasions that lack of communication between many residents and their caretakers can lead to many harsh consequences such as the cause of delayed care for residents, and many other preventable injuries, such as bed sores and bone fractures.

Moreover, it is important to understand some different cultural competences which include cultural values, beliefs and behaviors especially when working with culturally diverse populations. Knowing that not all nursing homes have access to interpreters who can help in translating to Spanish speaking elderly, still to be understanding of cultural diversity would lead to a better communication, help in avoiding language barriers and culture competency. It would help to decrease those barriers which would result in a positive health outcome for the Hispanic/Latino elderly who live in a nursing home facility in the United States.

Work Cited:

Fennell, M. L., Feng, Z., Clark, M. A., & Mor, V. (n.d.). Elderly Hispanics More Likely To Reside In Poor-Quality Nursing Homes. Retrieved April 20, 2016, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3825737/

More Latino families choose nursing homes to take care of aging parents. (2012). Retrieved April 20, 2016, from http://nbclatino.com/2012/07/13/more-latino-families-turn-to-nursing-homes-to-take-care-of-aging-parents/

Culturally Competent Care for Latino Patients. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2016, from https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/bioethics/resources/culturally-competent-care/culturally-competent-care-for-latino-patients/

Landale, N. S. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2016, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK19902/