March 18, 2006

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A Georgia Reader Calls Them “Criminal Trespassers”

A Montana Reader Couldn’t Understand His Filipino Nurses

From:  Paul Nachman [e-mail him]

Re: Joe Guzzardi’s Column: Then They Came for the Nurses (And the Taxpayers.)

VDARE.COM has had several posts about foreign nurses --- particularly about their impact on American nurses' employment prospects and about the brain drain we impose upon other countries. 

But what about the nurses effects on patient care?

In January 2005, I underwent an operation that had me stay one post-operative night in Torrance Memorial Hospital (Torrance, California). 

I was knocked out before the operation, so I don't know who attended me in the operating room. 

However, nearly all the nurses I saw during my post-op period were foreign-born, primarily Filipinos.  And they were perfectly pleasant. 

But I vividly recall that with one of them communication was nearly impossible.  Was she giving me an instruction?  Was she asking me a question?  I couldn’t tell!

My operation, though significant, was routine.  And the missed communication was apparently of no consequence. 

Maybe I was just lucky.  After all, it's easy enough to have misunderstandings between native speakers of a common language.