jenett (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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accessibility_fail2009-07-26 01:38 pm
jenett) wrote in accessibility_fail2009-07-26 01:38 pm
Hospital fails, wins, and tips
Hello! I've been reading since this created (since among other things, I have a number of people in my life who have a wide-ranging set of not-quite-standard accessibility issues, and so love to collect info on what might make things work better for them.)
I have a very good friend who has multiple disabilities. She's in her late 40s, and has got adult hearing loss, Crohn's disease, a range of medication and artificial sweetener allergies, and a hip that was badly broken at age 5, and never properly treated. (Well, until about 10 days ago, when she had a hip replacement.)
And that hip replacement involves a major fail - but also some serious wins. (I'll add that my friend's quite public about everything in here, and she knows I'm posting this.)
So, my friend is adult hearing loss. She knows a tiny bit of ASL, but not really a lot, and instead, she reads lips. Very well. Except for when she can't see them, or someone starts talking when they're out of sight. She also only catches about 10% of what's going on in any video or movie, unless it's captioned.
The fail: Before her hip replacement surgery, she had to attend a mandatory class for people getting hip replacements. She called up about a week before, and asked about accessibility issues. And, because she's used to this routine by now, she asked a lot of specific questions. Could she get a transcript, so she didn't have to take notes? Was there a video? Was it captioned??
"Well," they said. "We have a transcript of the presentations, but no, the video isn't captioned."
"When's the video, in the presentation?"
"Oh, at the end."
"Right then. I'll be leaving at that point, because it's not going to do me any good."
"Um." they said.
She showed up, to find that what they meant by 'transcript' was "copies of the PowerPoint slides" and from only one of the presenters (PT, but not the other two.) She was decidedly Not Happy.
Even worse than this specific fail was the issue that no one she asked in the hospital had a quick answer of "Y'know, I don't know, that's an unusual combination, but here's the one place I know you can go and figure out what's what." (like an accessibility office, or person in charge of such things.) She kept getting passed from person to person.
Later that week she was in the hospital for another pre-surgery appointment, and after asking in multiple different places, finally got directed to Language Services. (This is the magical helpful phrase, apparently).
*They* were amazing. Within 24 hours, she had an email from them saying "We're working on what we can do for you, here's a summary for our director who wants to know about these kinds of issues, and here's some questions about what would be helpful for you, so we can figure out how to make that work."
She was blown away - never has she gotten such a fast (and helpful!) response to an accessibility issue in the past. And in the next few days, they arranged for there to be CART services (communications access real-time transcription) throughout the day of surgery, and then during rounds and her PT sessions until she was discharged. She's since been transferred to a rehab center (in the same hospital complex where they've been continuing the CART service.)
The CART folks have been uniformly fantastic and thoughtful and helpful. Mostly, they do transcription (especially during PT when the therapist may be behind her, or whatever else) but sometimes they've done voice relay when she's moving around or there's no good way to set up the transcription machine (a large-screen laptop and a court-reporter/stenographer set up, basically).(If it weren't obvious, basically the CART person transcribes what everyone's saying in the room, and then my friend can read it. Real time captioning.)
Other helpful notes: Because of the hearing issues, and because hearing issues + med allergies and other specific problems made us worry she'd get given something (food, meds, etc.) that would cause really bad reactions, we've had someone sitting with her full time since she came out of surgery. (She's now a lot more alert, and we can taper off a bit.)
Both the hospital staff and the rehab staff have been really accommodating: all she has had to do a couple of times is explain why we're there, and that we're authorised to hear whatever medical details we're comfortable in dealing with.
I have a very good friend who has multiple disabilities. She's in her late 40s, and has got adult hearing loss, Crohn's disease, a range of medication and artificial sweetener allergies, and a hip that was badly broken at age 5, and never properly treated. (Well, until about 10 days ago, when she had a hip replacement.)
And that hip replacement involves a major fail - but also some serious wins. (I'll add that my friend's quite public about everything in here, and she knows I'm posting this.)
So, my friend is adult hearing loss. She knows a tiny bit of ASL, but not really a lot, and instead, she reads lips. Very well. Except for when she can't see them, or someone starts talking when they're out of sight. She also only catches about 10% of what's going on in any video or movie, unless it's captioned.
The fail: Before her hip replacement surgery, she had to attend a mandatory class for people getting hip replacements. She called up about a week before, and asked about accessibility issues. And, because she's used to this routine by now, she asked a lot of specific questions. Could she get a transcript, so she didn't have to take notes? Was there a video? Was it captioned??
"Well," they said. "We have a transcript of the presentations, but no, the video isn't captioned."
"When's the video, in the presentation?"
"Oh, at the end."
"Right then. I'll be leaving at that point, because it's not going to do me any good."
"Um." they said.
She showed up, to find that what they meant by 'transcript' was "copies of the PowerPoint slides" and from only one of the presenters (PT, but not the other two.) She was decidedly Not Happy.
Even worse than this specific fail was the issue that no one she asked in the hospital had a quick answer of "Y'know, I don't know, that's an unusual combination, but here's the one place I know you can go and figure out what's what." (like an accessibility office, or person in charge of such things.) She kept getting passed from person to person.
Later that week she was in the hospital for another pre-surgery appointment, and after asking in multiple different places, finally got directed to Language Services. (This is the magical helpful phrase, apparently).
*They* were amazing. Within 24 hours, she had an email from them saying "We're working on what we can do for you, here's a summary for our director who wants to know about these kinds of issues, and here's some questions about what would be helpful for you, so we can figure out how to make that work."
She was blown away - never has she gotten such a fast (and helpful!) response to an accessibility issue in the past. And in the next few days, they arranged for there to be CART services (communications access real-time transcription) throughout the day of surgery, and then during rounds and her PT sessions until she was discharged. She's since been transferred to a rehab center (in the same hospital complex where they've been continuing the CART service.)
The CART folks have been uniformly fantastic and thoughtful and helpful. Mostly, they do transcription (especially during PT when the therapist may be behind her, or whatever else) but sometimes they've done voice relay when she's moving around or there's no good way to set up the transcription machine (a large-screen laptop and a court-reporter/stenographer set up, basically).(If it weren't obvious, basically the CART person transcribes what everyone's saying in the room, and then my friend can read it. Real time captioning.)
Other helpful notes: Because of the hearing issues, and because hearing issues + med allergies and other specific problems made us worry she'd get given something (food, meds, etc.) that would cause really bad reactions, we've had someone sitting with her full time since she came out of surgery. (She's now a lot more alert, and we can taper off a bit.)
Both the hospital staff and the rehab staff have been really accommodating: all she has had to do a couple of times is explain why we're there, and that we're authorised to hear whatever medical details we're comfortable in dealing with.
no subject
As far as expenses go, the hourly rates in the US vary from $35/hour (internally billed for staff interpreters in elementary schools) to $150/hour (court-certified, in court, and actually it's really $300/hour, because there would always be two interpreters trading off and backing each other up).