Alameda Health System's Sambo Ly Receives KPIX Icon Award for Language Access Work

Sambo Ly, Alameda Health System's manager of interpreter services, has received the Icon Award from Bay Area news station KPIX in recognition of her decades of service to refugees and community members in Alameda County. The award highlights individuals who have made significant contributions to their community, with Ly's work addressing critical language access barriers in healthcare. Ly leads AHS' interpreter services department, which handles approximately 2,000 interpreter requests daily across 100 different languages for patients needing communication assistance with healthcare providers. Alameda County ranks among the most ethnically and linguistically diverse counties in the United States, with many AHS patients having limited English proficiency.

The department provides in-house interpretation in 10 languages, either in person or remotely, and offers access to on-demand remote interpreters for up to 300 languages. Recent innovations include introducing iPads that enable clearer patient-provider conversations. AHS CEO James Jackson emphasized that language access is a cornerstone of the organization's mission. Jackson stated that Ly's leadership and compassion ensure that no patient is left behind because of a language barrier, adding that her story reflects the resilience of the community and the values that guide the health system daily.

Ly's dedication stems from her personal experiences as a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. As children, she and her brother were sent to a forced labor camp where her brother disappeared after asking her to mend his pants. When Ly became ill with malaria and witnessed suffering in hospitals, she determined to walk out of her deathbed and refused to die, which inspired her healthcare career path. Refugee workers helped Ly and her family reach the United States, where she began working at AHS and dedicated her life to helping fellow refugees, immigrants, and underserved communities.

Beyond her professional role, Ly organizes weekly traditional Cambodian dance classes at her home, has assisted thousands with citizenship paperwork, transports Buddhist elders and monks to temples across California, serves as Board Chair of Peralta Hacienda Park, and has organized the annual Cambodian New Year celebration for 15 years—the largest Cambodian event in the Bay Area. Ly expressed humility about the recognition, stating that she knows from her own experience that having a language barrier is an invisible disability. She explained that once she had the opportunity to work at Alameda Health System, she saw an opportunity to give back to her community. The KPIX Icon Award program, which can be found at https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/icon-awards/, celebrates such community contributions.