Medical Access
No one likes to go to the doctor! Doctors scare most of
us; actually, it's not the doctor as much as the possibility that he'll
find something wrong with us. So just visiting a doctor can be a
stressful situation. For people with hearing loss, the stress is
multiplied significantly.
The past 10 years have seen the culturally Deaf make
significant strides in assuring their communication access in medical
situations. There have been a number of recent lawsuits that found
medial providers liable for refusing to provide interpreters as
requested. But what if you need CART, or an Assistive
Listening Device? Are medical providers required to provide those as
well? That's a legal question whose answer depends on the particulars of
the situation, but they are required to provide reasonable
accommodations.
If the answers aren't easy, people are at least starting
to study these situations. One effort to understand the issue is in the
form of a Health and Human Services Study.
December 2000 - Representatives of Delmarva Foundation
for Medical Care in Easton, Maryland and Gallaudet University in
Washington, DC have recently drafted a set of recommendations for health
care for people with hearing loss. Here is an
article summarizing their thoughts.
May 2001 - The full
text of the Delmarva Foundation recommendations is available here.
July
2003 - Here's a wonderful essay by Bev Biderman on the
problems of trying to lipread someone wearing a surgical mask.
September
2003 - Communications access in a hospital setting has long been a
problem for people with hearing loss. Now a company called LifeLinks is
offering a clever product that promises to solve that problem. Oh, yeah,
and it earns money for the hospital, too. Here's the
information!
November 2003 - Hospitals seem to be
especially difficult environments for people with hearing loss, because
most of them seem to have little understanding of how to deal with a
person with hearing loss. Here's an article about a rare
exception.
February 2004 - Hospitals are horrible
places, and probably lots worse for those who don't hear well. An
organization called Hard of Hearing Advocates (HOHA) has put together an
inexpensive hospital kit that improve the comfort of a
hospital stay for a person with hearing loss.
April
2006 - Stethoscope
Solutions for Hearing Aids
July 2008 -
Helping your health
care provider to hear you and vice versa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April
2006
I
am looking for a solution for BTE users who use stethoscopes. I have
seen adaptors for the ear pieces for ITC and CIC users, so what is the
best way to hook up a BTE user?
Thanks
for this question. I would like to answer it from a broader perspective
and talk about the various types of options available for persons who
wear all styles of hearing aids, or even if the user does not wear
hearing aids to begin with. Full
Story
