In 1979, during the final year of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime, Sambo Ly escaped to a refugee camp in Thailand as a teenager. Fleeing one of the most brutal military regimes in the world, Ly and her loved ones endured countless horrors: witnessing disappearances, forcible separations and executions of innocent family members. Twelve out of 17 of her relatives were lost in the aftermath, Ly told CBS News Bay Area, which honored her in September with an Icon Award for outstanding service to the community.
“I am a survivor. I have overcome my fear of losing by allowing myself to lose at the starting line and becoming a winner at the finish line,” wrote Ly for her 2015 memoir, All I Heard Was My Sorrow.
After leaving Cambodia, Ly devoted her career to helping other refugees and other patients who don’t have English as their native language at the Interpreter Services Department of Alameda Health System (AHS). AHS is one of 42 public-safety-net hospitals in California that welcomes all patients “regardless of their ability to pay,” said Eleanor Ajala, a media and communications manager.
Last year, the organization reported serving roughly 126,000 patients, 87.5% of whom were covered by Medi-Cal and Medicare. With a net financial deficit of $80.6M as of June 2024, AHS’s fiscal situation is poised to deteriorate significantly once President Donald Trump’s looming $1 trillion cuts to Medicaid go into effect, reported the East Bay Times.
Amid these challenges, Ly continues to lead programs that expand access for those in need of medical care. She manages a team of over 20 interpreters and spearheaded efforts to introduce visual interpretation through the use of iPads, which speeds up communication and creates a more frictionless clinical environment for patients.
“To me, I always feel that a language barrier is like an invisible disability,” Ly said, adding that “a physician who can speak a patient’s native language can provide a sense of safety.”
But mere linguistic fluency is insufficient to provide clinical care. Casual conversational skills aren’t precise enough to capture all the nuances of a patient’s specific symptoms, types of pain and medical conditions. At AHS, hundreds of bilingual physicians, nurses and medical providers have been specially trained through the organization’s “Qualified Bilingual Staff” program.
Crucial to Ly’s leadership is her empathy for serving the immigrant and refugee community in America. “You can connect to an individual with your own experience,” she said. “You can learn about stuff, but it’s not the same when you feel it.”
Ly began learning English at the Khao-I-Dang United Nations refugee camp in Thailand by assisting the camp’s medical personnel. A photo shows her as a young girl in front of a chalkboard learning the medical term “osteosarcoma,” a type of bone cancer.
As part of the U.N.’s refugee resettlement program, Ly had to wait for immigration sponsorship by a cousin who lived in Texas. Upon arriving in America, she remembered working at McDonald’s, Jack-in-the-Box and “all sorts of service industry jobs” before studying in college and moving to California, where there was a larger community from the Cambodian diaspora.
After joining Alameda Health System as a Cambodian interpreter in 1987, Ly also became more involved with the local community by teaching traditional dance in her home and making efforts to preserve her home country’s language and culture.
“I feel that I had that opportunity. That’s why I really work hard to make sure I do something to serve the community at large,” Ly said, reflecting that although the world is large, “every small thing counts.”
This article has been updated to reflect the correct number of public safety net hospitals in California.
