Posted on 10/30/2007 10:53:39 PM PDT by reaganaut1
Pharmacies across the city routinely fail to help non-English speakers understand their prescriptions, raising the chances that customers could harm themselves by taking medicines incorrectly, immigrant advocacy groups charge in a discrimination complaint that they plan to file today with the New York attorney general’s office.
The complaint names 16 pharmacies in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island, most of them operated by chains. It argues that federal civil rights law and state health regulations require pharmacies to provide linguistic help to guarantee that people who speak little or no English receive equal access to health care. That assistance should include interpreters at pharmacies and written translations of medication instructions, the advocates say.
Nisha Agarwal, a lawyer for one of the groups filing the complaint, said the attorney general’s office had already issued subpoenas to several pharmacies listed in an earlier version of the complaint filed in July. The new version names more pharmacies, and an accompanying report includes more examples of comprehension problems non-English speakers have had.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It's so easy for politicians and "activists" to mandate that businesses do XYZ, but where is the money coming from? If pharmacies operating in areas requiring translators charge more, get ready for the next NYT story saying that gouging immigrants.
Learn English or go home. End of story.
If you won’t learn English, then you are admitting this isn’t your home. And then we don’t want you. Period.
Go back to the old country and cry on their shoulder.
Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.
I speak Swahili with a Laotian accent! I have rights and I am suing for as you say in English “big bucks from the jackpot crooked lawyer scam.”
This means smaller print and less information for the rest of us! Pill bottles have been getting nasty enough in the last 20 years. They already print 5 times more space with warnings than they do telling you the proper dosage.
I used to think it was my eyes getting bad, but I pulled an old bottle out of the medicine chest and I could still read it just fine.
I seem to recall reading that there are 120 languages spoken in New York City.
I hope the city fathers make a law that each pharmacy must have a translator on 24 hour call for each of these languages. The people of New York City don't deserve to have ANY pharmacies when they vote for such foolishness.
-ccm
They can take their prescription leaflet to any NYC library scan it on to a computer, and use BableFish to translate it for them.
Of course about 20 percent of them can’t read their own language so what is the big deal.
bttt
Learn English or go home.
The answer of course is for English to be learned.
Yup. Go to Lowe’s or Home Depot to buy something. There’s more foreign languages on the box than Engrish. Ooops. English.
We have truly entered the Twilight Zone when it can be considered ‘bias’ to conduct business in English in America. This is demented. Learn English or at least get your own damned translator, people!!
Thanks George.
I have noticed that too. It is very frustrating anymore trying to find out about the actual product inside the box. When manufacturers have to print information in multiple languages, it leaves little room for the information that used to be readily available.
So leave.
I feel a new civil right coming on.
Simple solution:
With every prescription, give out a several hundred page instruction book for that drug with a page for every possible language and dosage possibility. Once Hillarycare is in place, this will present no additional cost burden to anyone because health care will be free then.
Nope. English is the language. Learn it or die. You have the freedom of choice.
I’m sorry. I’m already pi$$ed off that I’m paying for their prescriptions. I’m just simply not ready to pay for language issues.
learn the language folks it helps
"No drugs for YOU!"
Seriously...and these morons will be the first to complain that prescription prices are too high...minorities are hit the hardest...
By morons, I suppose any person who doesn't speak one of the five languages that will soon be required by law, and the editors at the NYT.
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