Many U.S. pharmacies limited to to English

MILWAUKEE, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- A Milwaukee study of pharmacies found that about half don't provide prescription labels and instructions in languages other then English.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, also found that about two-thirds of the pharmacies cannot communicate with patients who don’t speak English.

Lead author Michael Bradshaw, a Medical College of Wisconsin fourth-year medical student, said little is known about whether pharmacies provide adequate care to the 23 million in the United States, who have limited English proficiency.

Bradshaw and statistician Sandra Tomany-Korman contacted pharmacists or pharmacy technicians at 175 Milwaukee County pharmacies and 73 percent responded.

Many pharmacies said they were unhappy with their communications with limited English patients, but some pharmacies found effective ways to communicate by hiring bilingual staff, using computer translating programs and using telephone interpreting services.

The researchers also found that the Milwaukee County pharmacies estimated that about 5 percent of their patients speak a language other an English and 3 percent have limited limited English proficiency, while in reality 16 percent of Milwaukee County residents speak a language other than English at home and 7 percent have limited English proficiency.