Keif halik? (How are you?)

The space is about the size of a walk-in closet and, given its high-tech surroundings, is decidedly low-key.

Yet the newly curtained-off corner in a busy waiting room is creating quite a buzz at MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center, where a rapidly growing number of patients are Muslims who traditionally pray several times a day. Staffers said that before the curtain went up in early October, some of the patients would wander the health center's halls, searching for an empty office or cubicle, any private place they could find to pray.

The new prayer area, furnished with a rug that includes a compass that points toward the holy city of Mecca, opened at the beginning of Ramadan, a month of prayer, fasting, and charity that ended yesterday.

''If you have a 50-year-old person who has prayed every day of their life and they are here a long time, and they can't pray, it's really a lot of stress for them," said Saida Abdi, a Muslim from Somalia who now manages the refugee program at MGH Chelsea. ''Giving them this space takes away some of that stress."

Chelsea has long been the first home for many of Greater Boston's newly arriving immigrants. With each wave of newcomers, from Central America and Southeast Asia, MGH Chelsea has undergone a metamorphosis, adding signs in patients' native tongues, along with interpreters and other programs to help bridge cultural differences.

Officials at MGH Chelsea and other urban health centers north of Boston said they are now witnessing one of the most dramatic shifts in recent memory, with an influx of refugees and immigrants from Afghanistan, Bosnia, Somalia, and the Sudan. Many are Muslim -- including an estimated 3,000 of MGH Chelsea's 30,000 patients -- who bring very different cultural sensitivities and expectations than the newcomers who preceded them. Health officials said that has prompted rethinking their approach to medical care, from the kinds of gowns they offer Muslim patients during exams to the way physicians communicate basic health-care instructions during holy days.

Abdi said many female patients who are Muslim, particularly seniors, follow religious teachings to guard their modesty by wearing headscarves, or hijab, and long dresses. Often they are uneasy about taking off their clothes for exams. Traditional patient gowns are short and seldom manage to stay fastened. So the health center is searching for a manufacturer that will create ankle-length patient gowns.

In the meantime, Dr. Sanja Percac-Lima, an internist who treats many Muslim women, said she has devised a method that seems to ease patients' anxieties.

''We will look at the belly, with everything else covered with their own clothes," she said. ''And we slowly take off the clothes, part by part, as we put another piece back on."

Recently, Percac-Lima encountered an elderly Muslim woman who was fasting for Ramadan, when Muslims do not eat or drink from before dawn until sunset. The woman, a diabetic who needs to eat several small meals a day to keep her blood sugar stable, was getting sick from fasting.

''She said, 'My parents fasted. Everyone in my life has fasted.' And she is in her 70s and is asking me if it's OK to eat," Percac-Lima said. ''I said 'God said it's OK.' And she accepted that."

Health-care specialists at the North Shore Medical Center said they, too, are on a learning curve. NSMC includes acute care hospitals in Salem and Lynn, a cancer center in Peabody and a facility in Danvers for women's health care services.

Recently, a young Somali Bantu woman who was receiving prenatal care at NSMC's Union Hospital in Lynn arrived at the Salem emergency room in labor, said Julie Kautz Mills, director of community outreach and interpreter services for NSMC. The woman was alone and did not speak English. As her labor progressed, the baby's heartbeat accelerated, a sign of trouble.

''So the physician started to raise the question of a C-section with this young mother and she was adamantly opposed to it and said, 'It's in the hands of Allah,' " Mills said.

Physicians, working with interpreters, were not able to convince her. That's when they called in an imam, an elder in the Muslim religion, to speak with her.

''According to their religious beliefs, cutting into the body is frowned upon, but the imam was able to explain to her that, according to the writings, we always choose life," Mills said. ''He was letting her know she had permission to go ahead with the surgery, to save her baby and herself."

Still, the woman was reluctant. Then the imam made a startling discovery. No one had told the woman about anesthesia.

''This is a woman who came from a war-torn country, who was terrified of health care and anesthesia, and she assumed she was going to be cut open wide awake," Mills said. ''Even with the interpreter, it didn't occur to the physician to mention that she was not going to be awake, because we just assume they know we don't operate on anybody without pain relief."

Ultimately the baby was born without need of a C-section, Mills said. And no anesthesia was needed either. Health center officials conducted debriefing sessions for staffers after that case, and also plan training sessions for caregivers about the Muslim culture and religion.

''We have our work cut out for us," Mills said. ''We need to learn a lot to take care of our patients."

Kay Lazar can be reached at klazar@globe.com.