Ah, the old textphone. Great giver of communication and transformer of unintelligible sound into understandable, readable words.
I do love mine, though, sadly, not everyone does.
My brother and at least one friend won’t use it, although two other mates battle on with it gamely. (One no doubt because I once answered and spoke to her on a standard phone for a good ten minutes thinking she was someone else completely.)
Then there’s the pesky problem of automated systems, which ask you to press a number according to the level of your frustration.
You find yourself bellowing over the options, hoping the poor operator will have caught the one you want. (Off the scale frustrated and about to punch a hole in the wall, thanks for asking.)
Recently, after swirling endlessly round an interminable black hole to rearrange an appointment at a big London teaching hospital, no-one seemed to be able to find me, and I began to think my records had been irretrievably lost.
Finally, after governments had fallen, and empires had been lost and won, I got put through to a secretary in the reproductive health bit – for it is there that I am a patient.
No, I am not telling you any more. You’d only stop reading, it’s not relevant to the tale, and, anyway, don’t be so nosy.
The woman concerned clearly doesn’t get on with Text Relay from the start. I explained that I was just trying to rearrange an appointment I’d had to cancel the previous week, and was calling because I’d not heard about the new date. She came out with the following breathtaking remark:
“We don’t have any deaf patients in this department.”
I read the words twice to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating in my frustration. Nope, I wasn’t. Right, so what was this? Some sort of policy of deliberate exclusion? As it happens I identify as severely hard of hearing rather than actually deaf, but we’ll let that one go.
Just as I was finishing reeling from the initial shock of these words came offensive remark number two:
“If you’re elderly, you don’t need reproductive health anyway.”
Now this one really did feel like a blow to the solar plexus, being so wrong on so many levels. First up, the offensive and erroneous assumption that because of my poor hearing I had to be old and doddery.
As it happens, I am middle aged – my dancing days (such as they were) may be long behind me, but, even on a bad day, I don’t think I could be described as elderly.
Secondly, surely even if I were old, there could be aspects of the care this hospital department provided which I may have needed. (Ovarian cancer anyone?)
As if all that were not insulting enough, next thing I knew the operator was telling me that this individual (and the operator had a few choice adjectives for her) was not giving her name, and going to stop the call.
Outraged on my behalf, the operator then called back and we were put through to someone helpful who swiftly got me my new appointment.
I hate to let fairness get in the way of a good story, but I have to begrudgingly admit that the way the hospital responded to my subsequent complaint, quickly and decisively, was excellent.
Within hours I’d received an initial email apology, then a few days later I was invited to meet one of the suits at the hospital, who apologised again, expressed suitable regret at the incident, and was generally infuriatingly sympathetic and reasonable. The individual concerned will be disciplined and trained in equal opps.
Again only with the greatest reluctance, I feel obliged to give the other side of the story, as related by the suit, which is that the text relay operator was allegedly speaking so loudly at the hospital secretary, and that was why she couldn’t or wouldn’t prolong the call.
Of course, it’s impossible to know how much truth, if any, there is in that allegation. But the whole sorry incident, in which no-one came out especially well, also served as a depressing reminder of how ill-trained and ill-advised some people still are when dealing with those who can’t hear, and how much of a struggle even sorting out something very basic as a rearranged appointment can sometimes be.
Juliet England is a Reading-based severely hard of hearing freelance copywriter and journalist and is the author of two non-fiction books. As a child, she was bitten by the author Arthur C Clarke’s monkey in Sri Lanka, but has since recovered from the experience.
Photo credit: Stockxpert
The Limping Chicken is the UK’s deaf blogs and news website, and is the world’s most popular deaf blog.
Make sure you never miss a post by finding out how to follow us, and don’t forget to check out what our supporters provide:
- Phonak: innovative technology and products in hearing acoustics
- Ai-Live: Live captions and transcripts
- Bellman: hearing loss solutions
- Deaf Umbrella: sign language interpreting and communications support
- SignVideo: Instant BSL video interpreting online
- 121 Captions: captioning and speech-to-text services
- Doncaster School for the Deaf: education for Deaf children
- Signworld: online BSL learning and teaching materials
- Exeter Deaf Academy: education for Deaf children
- SignHealth: healthcare charity for Deaf people
- Lipspeaker UK: specialist lipspeaking support
- CJ Interpreting: communication support in BSL
- SDHH: Deaf television programmes online
- Sign Solutions:, language and learning
- Sign Lingual: BSL interpreting and communication services
- Action Deafness Communications: sign language and Red Dot online video interpreting
- Hamilton Lodge School in Brighton: education for Deaf children
- RAD: financial advice for Deaf people
- cSeeker: Online booking for communication support
- Krazy Kat: visual theatre with BSL
- Enable Support Services: Supporting Deaf children and adults in Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk
- Sign Language Days: Sign language learning in schools
Mike fahey
March 10, 2015
Oh! I feel for you Juliet, I have been there so many times… In fact I have just got off the phone with British Gas…. sigh!
Andy not him, me.
March 10, 2015
In my experience hearing people hate Text Relay. They just can’t wait to get us off the line. Quite often this means that we get better service, because they don’t want to prolong the conversation.
My longest ever Text Relay phone call was to my insurance company, who had managed to deduct a whole year’s premiums from my bank account *twice* in one month, sending me into the red and preventing me from paying any bills. I was on the Textphone for an hour and 40 minutes during which time I consumed several mugs of coffee and a Danish. The operator said they were playing classical music down the line. The Four Seasons came and went while we were on hold! I got my money back in the end.
Other times they are so brusque that even via the operator I can feel the coldness. I remember once having to ring the DoT Helpline for some important information about bus passes. The person at the other end didn’t introduce themselves and was as unhelpful as possible and I had to remind them that this WAS the Helpline and their job WAS to answer my enquiry. Quite what the operators think about all this I have no idea.
Nudge, nudge, wink, wink…..It is fairly easy to get revenge on unhelpful people by keeping them hanging on for longer than strictly necessary by asking extra questions. muhahahaha!
Nil illegitimus carborundum!
Natalya D
March 10, 2015
There is definitely a need for more training on relay cos most people assume it is spam and there is SO much spam that “spam” is more likely to occur than deaf person calling (nobbling spam legally and punishing perps of it would go a long way for us). Organisations MUST accept relay calls, OfCom says so http://ask.ofcom.org.uk/help/services-and-billing/relay which is worth having to hand to wave in people’s faces.
I once had a “helpful” callcentre adviser at BT tell me the website address of the RAD and that I could get a sign language interpreter there and call back then… They didn’t want to know that “that is now how RAD or terps work even if I was not a fairly basic signer”. Would have been funny if I hadn’t been trying to extract clue from BT about my relay bills which had suddenly gone AWOL just when I needed to prove I’d made calls via it.
Glad hospital responded to complaint so well (you’d have a juicy Equality Act 2010 case if they didn’t AND it happened again see http://www.simpsonmillar.co.uk/news/news.aspx?newsid=432). I don’t buy the secretary’s excuse for a minute. If the relay op was talking too loud then ask them to speak more quietly as part of the call. IF the secretary had done this, you would know what the issue was cos you’d have had it relayed!!!
And there’s no excuse for “we have no deaf here” that’s just plain rudeness. I have started to say “access starts with manners”; be welcoming, listen, ask how you can help (and if necessary help that person with access) and then listen to the answer and do it… Not rocket science; manners. There is no way that secretary was anything other than discourteous…
I hope this nonsense doesn’t happen to you again calling the hospital or anywhere else. Thank you for talking about it too, I don’t think people who don’t use relay have any idea of the daily reality of it and it does make it a teachable moment!
sue
March 10, 2015
I haven’t used TR yet but need to start as I don’t want to keep relying on other people to phone for me. I always assumed that the person on the other end could hear my voice but that their response would be typed back to me. Is this true, or does the operator speak for me?
Cathy
March 10, 2015
On text relay, you type in your story on your minicom, then the relay person will tell the person on the phone, what you have said, verbally. Person at the other end speaks and relay person types it back to you. It is good and useful, but be warned that it does not always work for important matters such as benefits or the bank. People on the other end refuse to give details as they have no proof who is in the middle etc. It breaches Data Protection rules. So although good it can be terribly frustrating and worthless to use! I haven’t used mine in years!
Natalya Dell
March 10, 2015
You can speak with your voice, in what is called “voice carry over” mode. What I am not sure of (cos I don’t use this mode myself) is how it presents to the other person. It may be worth it now next generation text relay is in place testing this with some friendly hearing friends.
http://www.ngts.org.uk is the official website and there’s a “deaf next generation text relay” group on FB which is VERY helpful and good at supporting people in trying it out.
I really must get my head around relay and maybe send LC an article with my findings and get people discussing it. It’s annoying, but it’s better than nowt and often all we have… Not everyone can be as cantankerous about refusing any telephony as I often am.
England
March 10, 2015
Thanks Natalya, that is very interesting about the postman ..
England
March 10, 2015
Sue- that’s right, and the other person can hear your voice.
Katie
March 10, 2015
You can now use Text Relay on smartphones, tablets or PCs as well as via a textphone (Minicom). See http://www.ngts.org.uk for more information about how to do this.