A harrowing video has been posted on Facebook of a deaf female hospital patient who apparently doesn’t know what drugs have been given to her and doesn’t know where she’s being taken to as her bed gets wheeled away.
Jasmine Jo, from London, made the video on her hospital bed using her mobile phone to tell a Facebook group that she was feeling anxious because of the poor communication between her and hospital staff as well suffering dizziness and sickness related to the reason she was in hospital. “I don’t understand what I’m being told. I’m being given injections but I don’t understand what’s happening” she said during the video.
Jasmine explained to camera that she was feeling anxious and had asked a doctor and a nurse about why she had been given a small bottle of medicine to take. Clearly ill and upset, Jasmine almost vomits into a dish and and then moments later, a nurse hands her a small flimsy piece of folded paper and a pen to write down what she wants to say. Another nurse appears to have some understanding of sign language as she correctly voices one part of the conversation but doesn’t utilise this skill further.
The first nurse replies verbally to Jasmine’s unseen written question telling her, while she is looking in another direction, that she will be moved. Jasmine didn’t understand and doesn’t seem to know what the nurses are doing.
Once the bed begins to move, Jasmine appears panicked and signs: “Where are we going?” A nurse then writes down the destination with Jasmine repeatedly making the sign for ‘I don’t understand’. The nurse continues to verbalise to Jasmine with no effect. The video ends with Jasmine looking worried as she is pushed through a hospital corridor.
The video was posted in the ‘Spit the Dummy and Campaign for BSL Act’ Facebook Group page where sign language users are encouraged to share their experiences of the problems they encounter with the aim of pressuring the government into improving rights for deaf people.
Jasmine posted another video two days later after two members of the Facebook group went to her rescue and acted as interpreters. “I feel better.” She said in the second video. “We sat down with the doctor and nurse and they explained everything to me. I am much happier. It didn’t work when we were having to write everything down.”
Serious problems for sign language users in hospitals isn’t a new phenomenon. A survey by Action on Hearing Loss last year showed widespread dissatisfaction with the way sign language users are treated in healthcare settings. 57% of respondents have been confused about how to take their medication because no sign language interpreter was provided and 10% had taken medication incorrectly. Some deaf people say that they put off appointments because of communication problems – a potentially deadly scenario.
This story in May told how a deaf patient in Scotland was left isolated for 12 days with no interpreter and this tragic story told of how a hearing son was forced to tell his deaf father he was going to die of liver cancer at an unexpected meeting with doctors.
By Andy Palmer, The Limping Chicken’s Editor-at-Large.
Andy volunteers for the Peterborough and District Deaf Children’s Society on their website, deaf football coaching and other events as well as working for a hearing loss charity. Contact him on twitter @LC_AndyP (views expressed are his own).
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Andy not Mr Palmer but another one
July 30, 2013
I’m deeply disgusted, of course. On the other hand the NHS is currently in flames over bad patient care so this is just a typical failure. It can’t be discrimination when hearing patients are treated equally badly!
Can we do something about it? I think we can and I am having a little bit of success here in making the NHS more aware that not everyone can hear! Because of the big shake-up in management I’ve taken the opportunity to get involved and give them a nudge towards better communications. Hopefully I am not finished yet.
I have had a meeting with their communication team and put the case for deaf (and Deaf) people needing a “reasonable adjustment” to allow for the fact that we are very vulnerable when needing medical attention. I have used Matt’s tragic story to illustrate what can happen if people are not listening. They were quite shocked.
Although stories like this are extreme, we as deaf people know full well how quickly events can turn against us so this kind of thing concerns us all.
Don’t just sit there, do something!
deafy123
July 30, 2013
Of course, this is a very horrible and upsetting story. However, with all the NHS failures constantly being shown on the media these days, and nurses portrayed as incompetent ‘baddies’ everywhere, it’s not surprising that these things then DO start happening more often.
I know many people who work for the NHS – members of my family, friends, and family friends are nurses, and they are all committed, hard working, and dedicated people towards their jobs and most of all, their patients. THEIR morale is being hit repeatedly over the head with these constant attacks on their work, which frankly, only a small handful of nurses do badly in.
This, coupled with constant cuts to services, is making work more STRESSFUL and TIRING for nurses. They are bossed around by management, called in to the office because they couldn’t physically do everything in a day because it has been too busy, and disciplined because they have been overworked and are too tired to do much more. They then end up going off ill, and with the shortage of staff, it puts MORE pressure on those left, and so the circle begins all over again.
There’s no denying that the nurses in the video weren’t able to effectively communicate to this patient, who was clearly in distress and rightly anxious due to not having the relevant information. But people also have to understand that the position the nurses were in was most likely equally of confusion and anxiety from their side. They couldn’t communicate with her, and didn’t know how – but it wasn’t THEIR fault. MANAGEMENT should have sent an interpreter down to the patient, making it less stressful and confusing on both sides. But again, to just add a spanner to the works, the cuts are making it more difficult to even get an interpreter in in the first place, never mind hiring them for lengthy amounts of time… So their nurses are expected to do more, including things they have never been trained in, adding yet more stress, adding yet more work they can’t physically fit in to the day, and so on, so forth. Catch 22 situation? I think so.
The BSL campaign is something which I am supporting 100%. It’s all fine and dandy writing/ recording/ documenting your awful experiences in hospital, but all it does is it adds to the fire of “let’s kill the NHS off and make everything private, because of course, everything will be far better then.” No. It won’t. Instead of just doing this, it needs to be highlighted to management politely, but forcefully – and yes, sometimes documenting experiences in one way or another will help to get the point across. But DON’T blame the nurses. This lady even said that once people came to the rescue, she felt much better. The nurses and doctors probably no longer felt like scary aliens coming to poke needles into her once they had better communication. And the nurses probably felt relieved that they could do what they’re there for – communicate and interact with their patients properly. BOTH sides just didn’t have the help they needed.
Tina
July 30, 2013
I would question why PALS did not organise a BSL interpreter for Jo. Did Jo request a BSL interpreter? Or did they just not book any support?
Olu agbi
December 17, 2013
I see wickedness in hospital because those staff cant understand or awareness of deaf needs.. It was really disgusting..
olu agbi
December 17, 2013
I meant to say have no awareness of deaf needs