(…) Recent immigration from all over Asia, Africa and Latin America has created a need for interpretation and translation in scores of languages for law enforcement, courts, hospitals and social-service agencies.

“If they don’t know the language, they can’t get jobs or communicate with medical providers. It’s essential to have an interpreter,” said Angela Plummer, the director of the Columbus-based nonprofit Community Refugee and Immigration Services, or CRIS, which began offering an interpreting service a decade ago.

Nine percent of Franklin County residents are foreign-born, triple the rate in 1990, according to recent U.S. Census figures. Plummer traces this growth to the recent resettlement of Nepalese and Iraqi refugees in central Ohio, as well as steady influxes from eastern Africa and Latin America the past two decades.

Franklin County Municipal Court calls upon interpreters for thousands of cases a year, said Adriana Fonseca, coordinator of the court’s interpretation services.

Besides knowing the language, court interpreters need to be trained in jurisprudence, Fonseca said. “It protects people’s rights through accuracy; due process is preserved.”

The demand for Arabic interpreters at the court has quadrupled in the past four years, reflecting the growth in the Iraqi community, Fonseca said.

In the medical field, language gaps can lead to errors ranging from inconsequential misunderstandings to fatal misdiagnoses, said Milly Valverde, the director of interpreter services at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. The hospital has contracts with ASIST and three other agencies, in addition to having its own staff of interpreters. More.

See: San Francisco Chronicle

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