Patient-centred care without cultural competence - really?

The new mantra in health care today is ‘patient-centred care’.  Despite the many definitions of, and recommendations for patient-centeredness coming out of prestigious institutions, it’s still not clear that existing bureaucracies and delivery systems can effectively support a robust patient-centred ‘movement’ – at least, not without tackling the range of inter-cultural barriers that currently exist.
One might ask how patient-centred care can be delivered at the bedside when practitioners cannot understand their patient’s language, or appreciate their non-biomedical health beliefs, communication behaviours, or religious preferences. These questions are not new.  But they continue to be relevant, even pressing, for today’s service environments.