Is the NHS listening to deaf people?
Dealing with hearing loss is hard enough for Coll Metcalfe, but the one place she thought she would be treated fairly was in hospital.
But the special needs school clerk tells in the Daily Mail today, that she found herself dismissed by healthcare workers when she felt at her most vulnerable.
Mrs Metcalfe, 43, has Menieres disease, a progressive inner ear disorder that causes hearing loss over time. On a recent visit to her GP the mother-of-one was told the dreaded news she had a breast lump that would need to be checked out straight away. Her GP wrote a referral that mentioned she was deaf to her local hospital and asked Coll to book an urgent appointment.
But when Coll rang the James Cook hospital in Middlesborough she found the special typetalk service provided for deaf people was constantly engaged.
As she due to visit the audiology department the next day anyway she decided to make the appointment face to face.
'When I got to reception I was told I had I had to make the appointment by phone even though the relevant department was just down the corridor,' Mrs Metcalfe said. 'I spent nearly an hour trying to explain I couldn't use a telephone in the usual way and it was an urgent appointment.'
Eventually she persuaded the receptionist to ring the appointments department and ask someone to come and help her. They refused saying Coll should go home and try to use the phone again like everyone else.
Steve Powell, Chief Executive of SignHealth has urged the NHS to make improvements. He said, 'We urge GP surgeries and hospitals to work with SignHealth to make easy improvements like free sign language interpretation over the internet, textphone facilities and visual display boards.'
Read the full story in today’s Daily Mail.
Comments
thank goodness at Bedford Hospital in various departments, and switchboard is good, I have found most people try to understand my problem and have been helpful.
It was difficult when I was an in-patient, not all nurses wanted to take the time to write things down. But Consultants were understanding.
Posted by: r. donnison | May 23, 2009 12:59 AM
Hi,
I just had a similar experience to my bad experience in April.
I found another lump but this time, the process has changed. No longer do we have to go to the hospital to make the appointment 24 hours after the GP has made the referral; we use "choose and book". Fine if you can hear to use the phone; not so good if you're deaf and can't.
The receptionist helped and made the phonecall for me - however, that removed my "choice" and independence. No matter; she was kind enough to do it for me.
BUT... There is no option via choose and book to book interpreters and GP surgeries don't do that. So a BIG row happened, I got upset - again - and very frustrated. The receptionist shouted at me, we all got narky and in the end she suggested that I take a friend with me.
I haven't even told my husband this time about the lumps as I wanted to get it all out of the way before I involved him.
So it's even WORSE now.
There is an organisation called TVDCS (Tees Valley and Durham Communication Service) which supplies terps to the NHS, but only to the hospital. Not to GP surgeries. So by offering choose and book via the GP surgery, we can't use TVDCS for interpreters. When we went through the hosptials, TVDCS was available. How ridiculous.
What to do now?? Well, I went to see PALS at the PCT office and lodged a complaint. Not against the GP surgery; but to encourage them to look at the choose and book system and think outside of the box when dealing with deaf patients. Surely there MUST be some way of serving the WHOLE community; deaf, hearing and everybody in between.
Contact me if you want any more details and I'll be happy to help.
Posted by: Coll Metcalfe | January 5, 2010 12:23 AM
Hi Coll.
I'm writing a report, part of which is about the treatment of d/Deaf people by the NHS and how their policies disable people. I'd be interested to learn how your experience continued after this.
Regards,
Kathy Roper
Posted by: Kathy Roper | May 10, 2011 09:24 PM