Deaf Communication Choices in Hospitals

Imagine this:

You are pregnant. You know what it is like to give birth. You are deaf. You ask hospital in advance for a live on site interpreter for the birth. Hospital says no. You sue. You lose because hospital convinces a magistrate that video remote interpreting (VRI) is good enough.

Despite reports in news that they will give you a live interpreter when the birth happens you are forced to have VRI. AND the VRI fails as you are giving birth!

You are having surgery. Then at an important time before surgery, in recovery, or in the hospital room, VRI fails.

You are in the emergency room. Right when it's needed the most, like during treatment or post-treatment instructions and discharge, VRI fails.

There is no backup and the hospital refuses to call for a live interpreter. All attempts at getting the medical people to write are failing.

Just how unacceptable are these scenarios/situations?

According to the National Association of the Deaf position statement on VRI, "If a deaf person uses sign language, hospitals should provide a qualified sign language interpreter..."

Seems there's no consensus in the courts about what "effective communication" actually means.

There's a petition going around related to the case mentioned above:

Bethesda Hospital East: Apologize to Margaret Weiss and Respect Deaf Patients' Needs!

Use this hashtag in social media and Twitter! #DeafChoice

Uber Isn't A Public Transportation Service?

First it was NYC with too few accessible taxis, then the mayor claiming that the taxis were a hazard, and now this...

Uber, Lyft, and other similar ride-sharing organizations, are claiming that disability laws do not apply to them.

Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

Say what? What are these guys smoking? Can I have some?

Uber IS a transportation service, not a "technology" company, because it's similar to a car service and taxis. All of them use a vehicle to take a passenger to a requested destination. Denying those with disabilities, or separating them from the non-disabled crowd, is still discrimination. Maybe they'd be a "technology" company if they used a teleporter, but no such luck.

No matter what, Uber's UberWAV and UberASSIST programs should be like how other taxi companies are set up, with the vehicles being used for disabled and not, and treated the same way without being charged too much more.

Want to know something else? Uber's also flooding the job boards with listings that say something like these:

"[job title] - Need to Earn More Money? Join UberX as a Driving Partner Today!"
"Having Trouble Getting A [job name/title/type] Job? Have A Flexible Schedule As An UberX Driving Partner Instead!"
"Entry Level Job Not Paying The Bills? Join UberX & Have a Flexible Schedule Driving Your Own Car."
"Make up to $xxx this Weekend in fares Driving Your Car. Join Uber Now!"

Personally, I'd avoid them til they clean up their act.

Cheers to DC, More Jeers to NYC

Washington DC's gotten some rather nice-looking accessible cabs. Why can't NYC do the same thing?

Hey, Mayor Bloom-boy... Get a load of THIS!

Wheelchair-Accessible Taxis on the Rise in Maryland Suburbs
Wheelchair-accessible taxis available in Prince George’s

Even the DC Metro paratransit has some of these. Can you do this, Mayor Bloomie? Come on, seriously... 13,000+ cabs out there and less than 250 are accessible? DC has a higher ratio than that. I challenge you to say that the MV-1 is hazardous to the non-disabled.

Oh, wait... I guess not...

NYC Taxis Don't Have To Accommodate The Disabled, Rules Appeals Court
Even Though London Will Have Accessible Nissan Cabs, TLC Says ADA Makes It Impossible

Or can it be?

More Handicap-Accessible Cabs Hit The Streets

Bloomberg, my man... Try using a wheelchair, powered or manual, for a week.

Technology and Equal Access

Interesting vlog titled We, Deafies have equal access to today's techology. NOT! She has MANY good points, especially when she said that we still have a long way to go in catching up.

I was in the hospital in 2003 for a bad infection and December 2008 for knee surgery. I had the same problem as RLM in the comments when he was trying to use the call button on his hospital bed. I had my hearing aids on/off and I could hear/feel them talk, but that was it. All I could do is tell them I needed them for something. At one DC Metro stop's turnstile near the elevator, when my farecard didn't work a couple times, I had to press the help button. When someone said something, I just said "I'm deaf, I can't understand you."

It shouldn't be too hard to put some sort of notification to note that a patient in a room has a hearing loss and may or may not be able to respond to the patent pressing the call button.

But, technology *CAN* be used to create things to allow someone at the other end to respond. If that's created, one problem that will be faced is those who will abuse and vandalize it.

When it's inclusive of everyone, then we know we've gotten some inroads somewhere. We've got at least some with the TTY phones in airports and other places. But in the meantime, sometimes you gotta depend on other people.

Technology, indeed. It can be good and a curse at the same time...