CHIA-Sacramento Chapter Meeting Report
November 15, 2003
Location: Lawrence J. Ellison Ambulatory Care Center
3rd Floor Conference Room
UC Davis health System
4860 "Y" Street
Sacramento CA 95817
Time: 8:30 am - 12:00 Noon
About 20 members took part in this chapter meeting.
Marbella Sala - The Chair Report. The meeting was opened by the Chapter Chair, Marbella Sala, who presented her "Chair Report," highlighting the year's accomplishments. Marbella pointed out that we have maintained our goal of at least four chapter meetings a year and intend to keep up that standard in 2004. In addition, Marbella has announced that in our chapter meeting of January 2004 she will call for an election of a chapter Chair and Vice Chair. Announcements to that effect will be sent out to all Sacramento members. In addition, Marbella recognized the tremendous work done by the Hmong Women's Heritage Association in training healthcare interpreters in the Northern California area and expressed hopes that follow-up programs will be developed for ongoing education of healthcare interpreters. Marbella also expressed her wish to see community colleges in our area offering educational courses for healthcare interpreters.
Marbella Sala also spoke about her participation in the Massachusetts Medical Interpreters Association and Harvard Medical School Seventh Annual National Conference on Medical Interpreting, under the theme "The Role of Culture in Medical Interpreting," held at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, October 17 and 18, 2003 <http://www.mmia.org/2003conf.htm>. Marbella distributed a variety of conference materials and discussed the main topics addressed in the conference, specially the interpreter's role of cultural clarifier.
Marbella concluded her Chair Report by announcing a year-end party on December 12, 2003 and a CHIA-Sacramento chapter meeting on January 24, 2004--both dates subject to change until final confirmation. Bill Glasser has volunteered to contact two bilingual doctors for participation in the next CHIA-Sacramento meeting.
Bill Glasser - CHIA Board Report and Healthcare Interpreting Business Climate in California. Bill Glasser spoke extensively about the CHIA Board vision for chapter development in connection with our goal to support healthcare accessibility in California. Bill Glasser commented on a piece of legislation signed by Governor Gray Davis, SB 853 (Escutia) , which will set preliminary standards for the delivery of interpreting services to all private and public health plan enrollees and insured patients. Bill Glasser pointed out that, while this law should rather be seen as a baby step in a long road, it certainly sets in motion a process that can only augment the demand for qualified interpreters in California. In a not-too-distant future, Bill pointed out, CHIA may be asked to take a leadership role in training and certifying the thousands of interpreters that California will need. Bill expressed the hope that CHIA will be ready to take on that task.
Marbella Sala pointed out that our CHIA members are welcome to contribute their own opinion with regard to the new guidance memorandum on linguistic access to health care, published by the DHHS Office for Civil Rights. Many believe the new guidance seems weaker than the previous one. Members desiring to offer comments will have until January to submit their comments. Address your comments directly to OCR by writing to Deanna Jang (marked with Attention LEP Comments). You can also email your comments to LEP.comments@hhs.gov. For additional information, go to the Web site of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care.
A discussion ensued about the need to establish healthcare interpreting courses in Sacramento-area community colleges. Marbella Sala has offered to discuss with officials at California State University at Northridge about their healthcare interpreting program, looking for ideas on how to set up a similar program in the Sacramento area.
Bill Glasser has offered to talk to officials at Los Rios Community College also about the implementation of a healthcare interpreting program.
Alice Chan volunteered to speak with officials at San Francisco State University, looking for information on healthcare-interpreting curricula.
Mai Thao - "The Impact of Shamanism on Meaningful Healthcre Access." Mai Thao is a staff member at the Hmong Women's Heritage Association. Mai Thao started out by showing a movie on Shamanism.
In the US, Shamanism conjures up images of witches, gurus, religious cults. But this is a long-standing healing tradition going back thousands of year. According to CLAS standards, this tradition should be respected. To help us understand the practice of Shamanism, Mai Thao, after showing the video "The Split Horn," carefully laid out a framework to help us understand why many Hmong people choose to practice Shamanism. Mai Thao recollected several of her own experiences with healing by Shamanism. Her presentation was followed by an animated session of questions and answers.
Paulo Pereira - "The CHIA Standard of Cultural Responsiveness." Based on a Powerpoint presentation, Paulo Pereira introduced the CLAS standards and related them to all of the CHIA ethical standards. He focused particularly on the standard of cultural responsiveness, which impacts directly on the presentation on Shamanism.
Round-Table Discussion - Our chapter meeting was concluded by an informal round-table discussion. Sam Ong brought up the wonderful opportunities that interpreters have in the Sacramento area to promote CHIA's name as an active participant in our community life, including those moments of patriotic demonstrations. For instance, Sam is involved in planning a parade on Memorial Day and has suggested that CHIA members should take part in that parade and prominently display a CHIA banner. Paulo offered to bring up this suggestion to Beverly Treumann, the CHIA President.
Prepared by Paulo Juarez Pereira
November 15, 2003
.gif)
