Miss-Delectable
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Deaf won't hear hospital's excuses | Fraser Coast News | Local News in Fraser Coast | Fraser Coast Chronicle
WHEN Judith Raxworthy’s husband was admitted to hospital last week it should have been a routine admission.
But despite being perfectly intelligent, Judith could not communicate with the doctors who treated her husband and she could not call her daughter from the hospital to inform her of her father’s illness.
Technology that is freely available and easy to install has been overlooked at the Hervey Bay Hospital – and deaf people like Judith are sick of not having access to it.
The hospital advertises that it has interpreters available for the deaf and hearing impaired.
Judith asked for one but the interpreter never turned up.
And despite TTY telephones being readily available through Telstra at the same rental cost as a standard telephone, the hospital does not have one.
Judith came into the Chronicle office on Friday afternoon “completely exhausted”.
For the previous three days she had been relying on family and friends to help her communicate with the medical staff at the hospital.
“It’s not good enough that Queensland Health doesn’t have this technology when it is readily available,” she said.
“I was told I had to access the National Relay Service through a computer. And I could not access the interpreter.”
On Friday evening Judith took her own TTY telephone to the hospital in the hopes she could plug it in to the system there.
“The nurses went beyond the call of duty for an hour-and-a-half trying to set it up for me but they still couldn’t do it.
“There are organisations that are funded to help deaf people get access – they should be ensuring this didn’t happen.
“I’m sick to death of people saying to me ‘You don’t look deaf’ just because I can speak well.
“I’ve taught myself to speak well over 30 years but I am absolutely totally deaf and I’m speaking for each and every one of those who can’t speak for themselves.”
On Saturday friends and volunteer translators Yvonne Loveday and Pat Phillips attended the hospital to help Judith. Yvonne said her interpreting work was a “labour of love”.
“We fill the gap when the services aren’t there,” she said.
“The translators who live locally are freelance interpreters.
“If an emergency happens at a time when they are not available, the service fails.
“Quite often in regional areas no one is sourced.”
LISTEN UP...
The National Relay Service provides telephone solutions for people who are deaf and hearing impaired
Spoken messages can be converted by the relay officer into a text message that can be read
Written messages can also be converted into a spoken message by the relay officer
A TTY (teletypewriter) phone, internet access, or a computer with TTY imitation software is needed to use the service
TTY telephones have a keyboard and a small display screen to read written messages
TTY telephones can be rented from Telstra at the same cost as a regular handset and can be plugged into a regular telephone wall socket
Some models of TTY telephones can be used as regular telephones
WHEN Judith Raxworthy’s husband was admitted to hospital last week it should have been a routine admission.
But despite being perfectly intelligent, Judith could not communicate with the doctors who treated her husband and she could not call her daughter from the hospital to inform her of her father’s illness.
Technology that is freely available and easy to install has been overlooked at the Hervey Bay Hospital – and deaf people like Judith are sick of not having access to it.
The hospital advertises that it has interpreters available for the deaf and hearing impaired.
Judith asked for one but the interpreter never turned up.
And despite TTY telephones being readily available through Telstra at the same rental cost as a standard telephone, the hospital does not have one.
Judith came into the Chronicle office on Friday afternoon “completely exhausted”.
For the previous three days she had been relying on family and friends to help her communicate with the medical staff at the hospital.
“It’s not good enough that Queensland Health doesn’t have this technology when it is readily available,” she said.
“I was told I had to access the National Relay Service through a computer. And I could not access the interpreter.”
On Friday evening Judith took her own TTY telephone to the hospital in the hopes she could plug it in to the system there.
“The nurses went beyond the call of duty for an hour-and-a-half trying to set it up for me but they still couldn’t do it.
“There are organisations that are funded to help deaf people get access – they should be ensuring this didn’t happen.
“I’m sick to death of people saying to me ‘You don’t look deaf’ just because I can speak well.
“I’ve taught myself to speak well over 30 years but I am absolutely totally deaf and I’m speaking for each and every one of those who can’t speak for themselves.”
On Saturday friends and volunteer translators Yvonne Loveday and Pat Phillips attended the hospital to help Judith. Yvonne said her interpreting work was a “labour of love”.
“We fill the gap when the services aren’t there,” she said.
“The translators who live locally are freelance interpreters.
“If an emergency happens at a time when they are not available, the service fails.
“Quite often in regional areas no one is sourced.”
LISTEN UP...
The National Relay Service provides telephone solutions for people who are deaf and hearing impaired
Spoken messages can be converted by the relay officer into a text message that can be read
Written messages can also be converted into a spoken message by the relay officer
A TTY (teletypewriter) phone, internet access, or a computer with TTY imitation software is needed to use the service
TTY telephones have a keyboard and a small display screen to read written messages
TTY telephones can be rented from Telstra at the same cost as a regular handset and can be plugged into a regular telephone wall socket
Some models of TTY telephones can be used as regular telephones